The Questionable Occurences Spawned In August
by Antje
Summary: Ro and Zee investigate the possibility that a serial killer may be murdering all the Infiltration Unit scientists.
1. Thirteen

**Title**: The Questionable Occurrences Spawned In August (Pretentious Title, Quick Read)**  
Author**: Antje Farries**  
Fandom**: The Zeta Project**  
Rating**: Teen**  
Language**: English (UK)**  
Note**: Sequel to _Whole Day Off_; faraway prequel to _Predestination_ (et al.), but you don't need familiarity with either title to read this . . . Notes are available at the end of the book (the end of chapter 24), sorted by chapter.**  
Warnings**: For anyone who's read my work before, it's the same ole stuff. VOP's (very odd pairings) and TMER (too much excessive realism). Psst, I don't own the Zeta Project... But cross my heart and hope to die that I invented ... well, some characters. Imaginations are great, aren't they? **  
Date**: All chapters 14 July to 7 August 2006; except chapter 1 on 15 April 2006  
**Length**: About 70,000 words; 24 chapters; and it's all written already!

o – o

A thank you to Rodney Brooks, author of Flesh and Machines, a compelling read about our past and present with robots, and a possible future with advanced, syntax-capable automatons.

o – o

_This convict, this desperate man, whom I have pursued even to persecution, and who has had me beneath his feet, and could have avenged himself, and who ought to have done so, as well as for his revenge as for his security, in granting me life, in sparing me, what has he done? His duty? No. Something more. And I, in sparing him in my turn, what have I done? My duty? No. Something more. There is then something more than duty._

-- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

o – o

1) Thirteen

Maria Laclaire was one of the finest sopranos of the last thirty years. She could wail out an aria and make wolves under full moons jealous. She could fill out an elaborate costume and make supermodels jealous. She could command an audience and make drama-seekers jealous.

_Hallelujah God, the woman's Jealousy Personified_, Thornton Harris thought to himself. _She even makes me feel emasculated._

And, really, that was saying something. At two-ten, three inches above six feet, he was a force up there with Tsunamis and Global Warming. Yet, there he sat, in the middle of the Palladium, in a tuxedo he actually owned and hadn't rented for the occasion, feeling himself shrivelling as though Maria Laclaire looked right at him—right at him with a mesmerising, womanly stare, like sulphur and starlight and Hell, in a uniform gaze.

He didn't even know what he was doing, spending the evening at an opera. Because his boss had asked him to go? Because the boss's wife had pleading, puppy-dog brown eyes that watered on command? Thornton always was a sucker for a woman who could act as well as she could kiss.

Trudy, the boss's wife, wore an evening dress of dangerous blue and an equally dangerous plunging neckline. Her hand, covered in the same royal blue satin, was curved over the forearm of her husband. Thornton noticed their affection through the evening, mostly out the corner of his cynical eye. He disapproved. He was single; naturally he disapproved. No one was allowed to have public affection if he was on the outside looking in. It seemed so desperately unfair, somehow.

Still, being single had its purposes. Its uses. Its fine points.

He politely applauded Maria Laclaire's ending aria along with the rest of the titillated horde, mind never on the opera. He was already drifting from singularity to work. The two ideas were not as far apart as first believed. Initially he'd given up his playboy life for his work. Then it was time to give up a fiancée. And when that still wasn't enough, he gave up all definitions of self, no matter how weak they were, for his work.

Who'd have thought that making software for government robots would be so inclusive? The National Security Agency had come along one dismal afternoon six years ago, and on their way to his front door they'd kindly erased all traces of life in wake.

Shouldn't he be able to blame his parents for something like this, this shoddy deal, this crappy hand that life had dealt him? It was his father's doing, for not hugging him enough, not disciplining him enough, during those awful growing-up years.

Yeah, somewhere back there, his father had done him wrong.

If only he could get that theory to _stick_, he'd really have something to tell his therapist.

He angled to neatly spy three seats away, to the long, strong features of a man nearing retirement age. His father. The one and only. He seemed to be enjoying the opera's end; he was quite fixed to the stage. But his soft hand poised confidently around the fingers of his flavour-of-the-month tartlet. Thornton leaned into the seat and tried to focus on the operatic fools.

But aside from sopranos that made him feel naked in a crowd, he couldn't get past the fact that this was a bunch of people dancing and singing in ridiculous costumes and getting _paid_ for it. Paid! Money! He'd only gone to appease his boss, the boss's wife and her pleading brown eyes that watered on command, and his emotionally distant and extremely ambiguous father.

He was glad he was single, not attached to a tartlet or an actress—or both, for that matter. He didn't have to pretend to enjoy himself for her sake. When the show ended and the cast appeared for bows and bravos, Thornton didn't have to pretend a thing.

The lobby was still empty when he landed in it. The applause went on behind him, through gilded doors of the ancient Palladium, restored once and restored again in its two hundred year history. What'd it matter to him, any of it? The opera. The Palladium. The boss's wife. His father. Being single, so single that Zero was getting jealous and Two looked on in awe. What'd it matter to him? He worked for the NSA, for crying out loud. What more could a man ask for? He knew things civilians couldn't even imagine, not even in the stupid Hollywood scripts that kept getting produced year after fruitless year. There were greater secrets in the world than the secret of a successful career, a successful marriage; there were secrets that shaped the world in a daily basis. Super secrets. _His_ secrets.

Laughter and idle talk pierced his ears. Patrons filed from the four sets of double doors. Already with his checked hat and dapper cane in hand, he waited for his party to catch him up. It didn't take long for Trudy; she sauntered to his side and at once latched elbows.

'I was sent to find you. And here you are! What's that serious look for? Didn't you like it, Thornton?' Her brown eyes were like charred cedar, widened and brightened by excitement and innate, upper class vanity. She thought she was perfect and charitable, being nice to a single, over-worked scientist like Thornton Harris. He was sick of her phoney niceties. _Sick._

'Not a bit,' he answered.

Trudy just giggled and tightened her hold. 'Come on, I see hubby waiting for us.' They headed for the exit along with ladies drowned in expensive perfume and men stinking of rental suits. Trudy was pressed close to him. 'Thornton, have you got a fag? I'm dying for a smoke.'

'Me too. Smoke 'em up while the government still lets us.' They'd barely made it to the door when he handed her a thin cigarette with a long filter. Trudy pressed the filter with her lips, smearing the circle in rose lipstick and spit. He had it lit with a flick of his butane lighter, brass, inscribed with his initials. A gift from his last lover. Butane: the gift that keeps on giving.

Trudy simpered at hubby and coiled smoke into the hot, damp Washington air. Washington. By God, Thornton hated Washington. Full of nothing but lawyers, politicians, journalists; concrete steps to concrete monuments; fundamentalists and radicals, judges and aristocrats, paupers and princes. Give him a home without contradiction, nothing much of anything, now that was life, living. Not this joke. This _Washington_.

Really, a bloody joke. It was no wonder he spent sixteen hours a day at the office, to avoid this spectacle of human spazz. The NSA had encapsulated him, so that he no longer knew any more of the world than the robots he helped create.

Trudy giggled again as the limousine pulled to the kerb, the first in an inexhaustible line of black limousines and silent chauffeurs. Thornton was expected to join them.

'Aren't you coming, son?' his father asked, already in, but ever ready to antagonise his child to the point of humiliation and beyond. 'We're having drinks, then it's off to a quiet party at Senator—'

'Don't think I will, if it's all the same,' Thornton interrupted. Emasculated by opera singers or not, he wouldn't put up with these Washington bureaucrats longer than necessary and still remain on their good side. They'd talk about him behind his back, anyway; everyone did in Washington. 'Think I'll walk to the office. Guess the opera must've inspired me or something.'

A giggle from Trudy, joined by the Tartlet. What was her name? The tartlet? He couldn't remember. Just couldn't remember. Helen? Hades? Destroyer? Gold-digger? Hell, he couldn't remember.

His father maintained facial impartiality. Gravity seemed to consume his features; he was pinched and flat. Strangely vacuous. His father, the Black Hole. 'Fine, spoil the evening with work. We'll see you later, then.'

Thornton sucked on the cigarette and nodded. 'Yeah. Sure.' He rolled his shoulders away and heard the others murmur farewells. The limousine door shut, the sound of the engine lost in the hum of the gathered after-show crowd. Finery and glitz, he saw it all as he passed. To the very edge of the Palladium the finery and glitz swelled. Finery and glitz, money and champagne, hemmed all of the District of Columbia like a white picket fence.

The cigarette burned bitter against his tongue, where he'd sucked it to the filter. It crunched under the loafer heel. In the quiet of closed businesses just beyond the Palladium, he could hear the crunch as clear as a sparrow chirps in morning. His loafers clicked on. He prowled past darkened window shops, watching the orange street lamps glisten in shallow puddles left over from afternoon rain. Live folk music played from a small club he slowly approached. He didn't care for folk music—he didn't care much for any music at all—but he found the woman's vocals soothing and rather sweet. Outside the club doors, he peeked in among those standing outside to satiate addictions, like his, to the dim inside. But kept walking. Always walking. One never stopped moving in Washington. What would happen if he did? He'd turn into a pillar of salt.

At the corner, two blocks from his office, his mobile danced in his jacket pocket. The call connected when the heat sensors touched his face. 'Harris.'

'Thor, hey, it's Billie.'

'Yeah, I know. The wonder of technology these days.' He looked both ways before crossing the street. It took a second for flashbacks from his childhood to zip and float and die, of his father in a white and black suit, holding his hand to cross the road, on the way to . . . a funeral. Had it been a funeral?

'What's going on, Billie? You never call me anymore.'

'I know, I'm sorry, Thor.' And she really sounded sorry, too. She used to work with him, if work could be the word, back in the same electronics firm when they were both fresh from college and ready—sorta—for the real world. Working with her for three years, dating her for one of those years, being at her wedding the third year, and, well, it created some inextirpable understanding between them. The firm, however, was absorbed into another, jobs redistributed, and they were out of work. She'd gone to the Midwest with her new husband, back to her hometown, and Thornton had gone to the one place he hated, Washington. The theory was that if he lived in a place he hated more than he hated himself, the self-loathing would eventually leave him, and he'd have nothing left but the hate of a city he couldn't change. The theory backfired. He didn't hate himself any less, and now he was just miserable.

'I'm just giving you a hard time. You know how I am. I haven't changed. How's life?' He was now so close to his office that he began to feel around his pockets for the key.

'I can't talk long. Listen, Thor, did you hear what happened in Colorado Springs last month?'

'No idea. Do I get a guess? Something to do with that whacko in charge of Family Faith International? He lives there, doesn't he?'

'Yeah, but it's not about that.'

'I always thought they should change their name to some silly acronym. Like, uh, C.H.R.I.S.T: Christians Heralding the—.'

'Thor, shut it a second. This is important. OK?'

He swore. 'It is, huh? Sorry. I didn't notice the ice in your voice. What is it? What in Colorado Springs could possibly have upset you? You live at least fifteen hundred freaking miles from Colorado Springs, Billie.'

A long silence stung Thornton to stillness. He stopped near the bench under a willow tree, at the front courtyard of the office building. Staring into space, he tried to imagine what was so awful that it'd still send Billie into heaving gasps even a month later . . . What was so tragic?

'Irving Houston is dead.'

Thornton was glad for the bench being so near; he fell into it without thinking. 'Oh.' Irving Houston was dead. Thornton had vague remembrances of the doctor, award-winning scientist, genius . . . Another dead genius. Could the world survive? 'Irving Houston. You know, I haven't said that name aloud in some time. What's the story with it, love? You know?'

'I don't know. Wish I did. I heard about it from Eric Valos. You remember Valos, don't you?'

'Yeah. Sneaky, devilishly handsome, looks like a Adonis, irresistible to women. Except you, of course.'

'That's the guy.'

Valos. Used to work for the NSA. Military. Major or something. Or was it Major-Something? Or Something-Major? Thornton was a paid scientist, not military personnel, and it wasn't in his job description to know ranks, only to respect them.

'Total ass, too, if I may speak indifferently for a moment. How'd the major find out? And why in the hell did he call you?'

'He didn't call me. I ran into him at a meeting today.'

'When did you start meeting with ex-NSA military personnel?'

'You're missing the point, Thor.'

'No, I'm not. Irving Houston is dead. Full stop. Tell me what killed him.'

'Massive coronary—'

'A weak heart? Irving Houston?' His laugh slipped around the courtyard, off the leafy trees and sandstone structure towering above him. 'Yeah, right. The guy crapped out bran muffins for breakfast.' His gaze flickered across the courtyard, noticing the trees had rustled a little longer in the breeze than others. Suddenly, he didn't feel very alone. He rose from the bench and brought out his identification card and entrance key.

'Thor, that's twelve dead.'

'Twelve what dead?' He slid the key into scanner and waited for the green light. The narrow light strip blinked but stayed red. His card was spat out. He swore rather loudly and put the card back in.

'Twelve NSA scientists. In four years. Since the start of the IU programme.'

He laughed uncomfortably. The card spat out again. 'You've called to warn me that some underground, unknown group of anti-government, anti-technology allegiance is killing us off?'

'It's possible. There are a lot of people who think the government making these things is . . . is wrong.'

'Billie, that's ridiculous. Do you realise how ridiculous you sound telling me that? Seriously. Besides, this is the NSA. The government. And the government is never wrong, love.'

'You sound like a loyal kiss ass.'

'I am a loyal kiss ass towards those who pay me. But I'm no ruddy right-wing jingoist.'

Finally, the light turned green. Relieved, Thornton stepped through the sliding door.

A pressure on his arm frightened him stiff. The mobile crashed to the granite. In the inadequate light, Thornton struggled with his assailant. He grunted against the strength and pain in his arm. Between his fast breath he could hear Billie shouting to him . . . The ice in her voice no longer heartless, now full of passion and fear.

It was good to hear her voice again. So rewarding. He'd rather hear her hysteric shrieks than his pounding heart, even as he caught a glint of grey steel and smelled the scent of cordite long before he hit the ground.

Surprisingly, he knew he wasn't dead yet. Somewhere some part of him burned but he wasn't dead yet. He faced the phone, Billie's voice, her sobs. A leather glove came from nowhere above and plucked up the device. Billie's crying stopped. Thornton felt the phone being replaced to the pocket inside his tuxedo coat.

'You were right,' an indescribable tone spoke from an ever increasing distance. 'The government is never wrong.'

Thornton smiled a little.

_So it seems . . . And I'm unlucky number thirteen. Lucky . . . Lucky me. Yeah. Lucky me. . . ._


	2. Study

2) Study

Date: Thursday, 14 August 2042  
Original notes: Ro Rowen  
Compiled by: Zee Smith

'I don't believe this!' I kept my voice as hushed as I could, but considering the environs, of course three eager people 'Shushed!' me in grotesque, snake-like hissing. I ignored them and pressed the issue to Zee. Though, honestly, I barely saw his features among a high rise of books, some old, some new. All of them predominately worthless.

Zee threw furtive regards to those who'd tried shushing me, but otherwise his black-haired head remained bent toward a brown tome printed sometime around the birth of America's thirtieth president. I can't imagine what something so old could provide. Despondent, I made a wild gesture to decree our luck had faded, and we were bereft of hope.

'There's nothing here, Zee! Nothing!'

It's great when Zee glances at you. Just for a second he does it, enough to see those deep blue eyes of his resting on a soul of poetry and commiseration. How far it reaches into you, how many soundless words he can convey, in prose or stanza or Shakespearean quotes, you'll never know, because it's only a glance.

_Flip_ went the page as he turned it. The bone of his square cheek rested in his palm, and his fingers twitched in black locks. Concentration of Infiltration Unit Zeta, it should be declared, is an intense act. One should witness such an sight to fully comprehend just how intense it is. Positively nuclear.

Clear-cut communication, on the other hand . . . Forget about it.

Holding in a huff and a severe bout of titanic anger, I grabbed the next book from the tower and opened it in my lap. I leaned richly into the soft library seat, my home for the last few hours, and focused my weary eyes on yet more words. Words, words, words, and yet more words, stood out against an off-white background, mingled here and there with representative photographs. I tried to release frustration long enough to read a couple of sentences, then realised, dismayed, that I couldn't remember what I'd just read.

_In 1927, the US government became overly concerned about the rebellious situations in Germany, Poland, and Austria. No less than twenty-three military personnel underwent specialty training for potential use in these domineering and hostile lands._

In other words: Huh?

The book slammed shut and I gently pushed it onto the table, more forlorn was I than purely angry. The titles called to me, and once again I read the stack of my responsibility: _Conspiracy Theory in America; The US Government and You: A Guide To Your Privacy; Technology and the CIA: What Every American Should Know; Mad Hatters: A Spy's Intimate Look at the US Government's Domestic Policies; Socialism and US Presidents; Agents of Spades: The NSA Today; Failure to Find Freedom: What Washington Doesn't Want You To Know_ . . . and so on, so forth . . . ad nauseam, puke, puke, someone just shoot me now and stop all this fun . . .

Rubbing my face harshly brought little life back into it; I snivelled and sighed but that didn't help either. My shoulders were tense and my legs were stiff from sitting so long. My lower back hurt in sharp then dull little stabs, womanly pains that not even massive doses of ibuprofen could deter. I was very tired and very dearly ready to call the read-a-thon quits. I had no idea of the time, nor could I even calculate how late it must've grown.

'What time is it, Zee?'

'Seventeen-thirty.'

He always gave me the time if I asked him, and if he wasn't over-thinking and forgot to answer.

'The library closes at eight, right?'

'Hm.' He nodded. _Flip_.

The hotel waited for me, and I knew I couldn't let it wait forever. I'd love to lie in a big bed and surf mindless television for a while, maybe even stay up late enough to watch talk shows. But Zee wasn't ready; I could tell that just by looking at him.

_Flip_.

Okay, without even looking at him, just by listening to him.

He was so absorbed that I could almost see his holographic outer shell turning to text as he sat there. He wouldn't leave until he'd exhausted all resources. It stuck me in a hard spot, since I knew he'd never let me wander back to the hotel alone, even if it was only two blocks away. We were in very precarious times. This overprotective inclination of his manifested from our geographical location: a mere two hours' drive from the NSA field office in Colorado Springs. We'd been near other NSA field offices before—they were all over the place—but Colorado Springs was a big one, a very big one. The Major Agent Trio of Bennett, Lee and West used it as their home base, when they weren't out hunting for us. To think that we were only north of them, right up Interstate 25, in Fort Collins . . . it gave me the chills. I'd liked it better when we were on our way out of Colorado three weeks ago. We'd made it as far as Lawrence, Kansas, before Zee decided to head back. He thought we could find out more here. And, just perhaps, there was some truth when he'd said: 'The agents wouldn't think to look for us in Colorado again, not so soon.' But it didn't comfort me. A hot bath in a hotel followed by some hot chocolate, now that could comfort me.

Still, if he was planning something, a getaway or dinner on the run, he wasn't saying. Zee had been way beyond the point of laconic lately. He'd been practically mute.

Since our trip to Colorado Springs Zee hadn't been himself. While there, he discovered that one of the Infiltration Unit scientists, Irving Houston, had suddenly died. And I, with my big mouth and ever-awake but sometimes not-so-swift brain, decided to say this ridiculous theory of mine: Wasn't it suspicious that so many of the IU scientists, present or former, wound up dead in the last four years? So this new obsession of Zee's, it was really my fault. I had hoped, when we made it to Kansas, that he would do as he'd promised, that he'd set it aside. Our real focus was to find Dr Eli Selig, also one of the Infiltration Unit scientists, one of Zee's original creators.

Twelve scientists had died since the first one in January, 2039. Ten met mortality in less than mysterious ways: diseases, accidents, even one suicide. The scientist who danced with Death just sixteen days before Irving Houston, a hardware expert, Maccai Bjordni, suffered a fatal stab wound in a barroom brawl in Havana, Cuba. 'How very Christopher Marlowe of him,' Zee mumbled when coming across this information. The two suspicious deaths were both women: Caroline Walker-Payne and Dr Joan Florence Simms. The latter was once a contemporary of Eli Selig. So far, we'd been unable—I'd been unable—to find adequate details on her life as well as her death. But I hated that both female scientists had been murdered so violently, probably because they were female. Zee didn't like it either. He was beginning to produce a profile on this killer—or killers.

Anything that involved Selig was Zee's major obsession.

He went on twirling his hair. Twirl, twirl, flip, flip. The pages he scanned at immense, inhuman alacrity, with greater accuracy than I, one who'd finally succumbed to human fatigue, hunger, and cramps. To be done in by cramps! Was there anything more human? Except I'd grown wise since knowing Zee: Never mention cramps, menstruation, or any function of the human body at any point in time, ever. It fascinated him: He'd want to discuss it for hours. Not exactly a good time.

'Zee?'

He snapped out of the extraordinary concentration long enough to notice me. 'Yes, Ro?'

'I want to go.'

'Ah.' He went back to the precious book. Twirl, twirl. Silence. More silence.

'Now,' I finally said. 'I want to go now.' No disappointment from my metallic friend did I sense, but a confusion wavered in his often emotionless eyes. What did I expect? It was only five-thirty. He anticipated hours of fine research and twirling of hair and contemplation of occult and uncertain government secrets. What was that saying he used sometimes? 'Miles to go before I sleep.' One of his poetry things that drove me to the point of anger and into all the madness beyond.

Instead of that, I touched the top of his hand. 'Hey, look, I get it: Miles to go before you sleep. That's great. You can just walk me to the hotel then come right back here. What do you say?'

Reluctantly, he nodded. 'I'll tell one of the employees not to touch this table.' Noticing the debris of books before him, he felt slightly overwhelmed, and suddenly empathetic to my humanness. 'Are you hungry?'

'I could eat a little,' I lied. I could eat the whole town's food supply and still have room for ice cream. Nothing in the world finer than an ice cream hangover the next morning.

He stood with me and headed towards the exit. The library was quiet, as libraries should be, but quieter than most I'd lately entered. Usually there was some talk, teenagers on mobiles, librarians to other librarians, discussions at the research desk, the clicking of keyboards . . . but none of that now. There were no students, only a few adults and some adults with children. I realised that the nearby college wouldn't start for another two weeks, so naturally the library would reflect a deficiency in student numbers.

Zee stopped at the reference desk to leave his wishes that the books remain untouched. I scanned titles on the 'New In Non-fiction' bookshelf, were I could thumb through a real book, a book on CD, or take a ticket to the check out counter and download the whole novel to my computer. You know, if I had a computer. The closest I had was a tiny jump drive, kept sacred in the pocket of my blue jeans. Zee returned and tapped me on the shoulder, escorting me from the building. I liked Colorado for only one reason: hot days, cool nights. I folded my arms to keep out the chill, glad the hotel was only two blocks to the north.

'Do you really think you're going to find something useful in all those books, Zee? There are a _lot_ of them.'

'I have to try. I'm particularly interested in Dr Simms. If she was still in touch with Dr Selig, it could leave him vulnerable to—to these unusual coincidental deaths. Perhaps they spoke before she died. Perhaps she knew the circumstances. She did die more recently than the rest.'

'So, you're thinking that she might've known and given Selig a heads up, huh?'

'Yes. That may make Dr Selig more difficult to find.'

'Because he will have become even more reclusive?'

'Unfortunately. If he heard of the scientists untimely deaths, it's likely he would've found a way to keep himself hidden. He may not even be working for the government anymore.'

'You mean the US government.'

Zee shook his head. 'Dr Selig wouldn't be allowed to work with other countries. He'd be under a lifelong contract.'

'Like you are?'

'My contract was nullified the day I went renegade. But, yes, the essentials of the contract are the same. That'd be treason, Ro, and that means death.'

Conversation tapered after that; death is a good way to kill talk fast. I entered the hotel lobby three steps ahead of Zee. But he went through his normal routine of scanning the place for suspicious characters who might jump us, bounty hunters, NSA agents, or just plain stupid people. He was sure of its safety relatively soon, lingering at my elbow while I gave the front desk clerk my room service order, steamed vegetables and roasted salmon.

Our room was a suite, six rooms, including a living room, a giant bathroom, and two bedrooms, plus a small kitchen. (Not that either of us can cook.) Zee never did things halfway anymore. He went all out or he did nothing at all. What was the point of having an unlimited credcard if you weren't going to use it? But, sometimes, even Zee surprised me.

I sat on the couch and pulled a pillow to me. He treated the room the same way he did the lobby. I waited for his return, like super-secret spy agent, before asking wearisome enquiries. 'Why are we staying here? Wouldn't it be better if we left?'

He smirked a little, just faintly. 'We'll leave soon. Probably in the morning.'

'Maybe we should leave tonight. Won't they find us, if we stay here too long?'

'Not right now.'

This was unusual conviction. I winced. 'I don't like it when you're hiding something. What are you hiding?'

I untied my trainer and tossed it at him. Quick reflexes, as I suspected, caught the shoe in one hand. He set it down on the carpet, under the cocktail table. He dragged my other foot across his knee and undid the laces, removing the shoe. In a lot of ways, he is like Prince Charming, but in a lot more ways he's like my personal valet, Bertuccio to Monte Cristo.

I stuck my toes to his neck, threateningly. 'What'd you do, Zee? Rob a refresh? Swipe some kid's allowance? Hack our way into the hotel's computer?'

He put my foot down, and I dragged it away. Sometimes he liked to tickle. No one likes to be tickled, if she does, she's insane and should be promptly locked up somewhere, removed from all genteel society.

'That last method worked very well, though perhaps I'm biased.'

'It was my idea,' I gently reminded. 'But you did all the dirty work. So, how'd you do it this time? How are we going to get out of here in one piece?'

'Easy: I used an alternate method of payment for this hotel room.'

'Alternate—what?'

'Method of payment.' He looked at me. 'Not my credcard.'

'Oh, I see.' I bee-lined for the bathroom. 'I won't ask where you got the cash—or whatever this "alternate method" really is.' My head popped back around the doorframe and into the living room. Zee remained on the couch, resplendent and relaxed. 'Just, um, try not to worry so much.'

He examined himself, the calm way he was sitting, then eyed me curiously. I don't know what he thought in those minutes I was away, but I imagined his thoughts were grave, disordered.

_Edit from Zee: My thoughts were disordered, and I was grave. I'm sorry for my behaviour that night. I can see from these notes that I was not quite like myself. You were right, and I was worried. But in those minutes of your absence I was unable to find answers to questions rolling about my head. How could something like this happen? How could the government be so unaware? What would they do if they found out? Was Dr Selig safe? Would it matter whether or not I was able to find out who was responsible?_

After combing my hair and changing my shirt, I wandered from the bathroom. Book dust had ravaged my previous t-shirt, and my allergies began flaring. My salmon and veggies had arrived, and I sat at the long dining room table, complete with a fresh flower bouquet, and tried to eat slowly. Zee paced the hallways. Eventually, the allergies got to me, and I sneezed five times in a row. Presently, Zee returned and removed the flowers to the fireplace mantle. I felt better without them right under my nose.

Zee slipped into the nearest chair. He drummed his fingers on the table, then leaned into his arms. 'I've changed my mind,' he said. 'We should go. Tonight.'

I paused. 'Did something happen while I was in the bathroom?'

He stared into his hands.

'So no agents dropped by then, right? You're changing your mind of your own volition, no outside influences, say influences with big, flashy guns that can reduce your metal skin to ash . . . ?'

I'd gone too far and offended, told by Zee's abrupt movement out of the seat. He kept his back to me.

'Sorry,' I mumbled. 'I didn't mean—' I didn't know what I didn't mean. My veggies were a joy to poke at. I poked a pea right off the plate and onto the floor. I bent over to pick it up and must've disappeared for a moment. Zee dashed to the end of the table and found me there, pea between my fingers. 'I just dropped the pea.' It fell on my plate when I let it go.

If anyone ever tells you that it's easy living twenty-four hours, seven days a week in the company of just one other person, he's lying. It's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Granted, Zee's easier to deal with than a human. He doesn't argue. He doesn't yell. He has no expectations of me, thus it's impossible to disappoint him. But it did take him a while to learn not to walk in on me when I'm in the bathroom, not to wake me up in the middle of the night just to ask if I knew a crossword puzzle clue, not to tickle me unless you want a wrestling match, and never, ever separate me from chocolate. But he did learn.

We were beyond the point now of asking permission before doing certain things. He grabbed my backpack, for instance, and started throwing my things into it. Generally, I'm a very possessive girl. No one touches my stuff unless they want black eyes and broken ribs. This attitude is, I admit, a touch sour. Okay, a whole lot sour. It stems from living in girls' homes, never being allowed to have anything that was my own. Why would I want someone to touch my stuff? You just don't do that to me. At first I wouldn't even let Zee get near anything I owned. Time passes, and he grows on you, like verdure over a grave. Such things never fazed me anymore, except when realising it doesn't faze me.

The backpack was handed to me, after my satisfying meal. Both of us were stuffed full, me and the backpack. I grabbed it gingerly, dazed by the return of aggressive, despotic Zee. Before, he'd been prematurely surrendering to old age, told by an introverted manner and thoughtful pauses in the middle of lengthy sentences. I hoped it was more the proximity to the NSA's largest western-based presence than the slow, unscrupulous demise of all Infiltration Unit scientists. Some part of Zee was walled up in denial. Even I had difficulty believing someone would want twenty-eight incredibly brilliant individuals destroyed simply because they built incredibly brilliant things, like Zee.

I hugged the backpack, seeing him zip in and out of the rooms to make sure we had everything, no trace of us left behind. I knew it was impossible to do. Everything I owned fit into that little sack in my lap. A sweatshirt. Some socks and undies. Hair baubles. A toothbrush. A comb. Zee housed a piece of my life, too: the picture of my brother, buried in one of his body pockets, a cavity beneath the metal, between implements and wires and neuro-wafers. Not exactly where I would like to keep a reverent object so rare, but that was the way it had to be. Besides, I have a photographic memory, and I can drag that picture of my brother into my mind whenever I want—sometimes not even when I want. Zee said women have better photographic memories than men, but I don't believe him. In my months of running with him, Zee seemed to appreciate the attitudes and emotions of women more than stalwart, emotionless men, like Agent Bennett. Although he had admitted, just once and merely in passing, that Agent West amused.

Zee took my hand and pulled me to my feet. Without words, we left the room and sauntered down the corridor. Zee traipsed ahead, back in the blue-violet coat, its tailored tails sweeping out behind him, a feral dust. I picked up my feet and grabbed his elbow.

'I think you should cut the pace a bit, tinman,' I started. He needed to ask why, but I beat him to it. 'You're oozing just a little too much, er, meanness right now. If you could just take it back a notch, okay? You're going to attract too much attention as soon as we hit the lobby. Everyone'll be looking your way, and your real goal is to blend in, right?'

'Yes.' He froze, realigning himself with this character he was, had been for a long time. Maybe he would be assertive, the bit of him that was real, but Zee Smith would not. He couldn't remember the last time it became too hard to know the difference. 'Thank you.'

I went ahead, proud to protect my friend the way he protected me. 'Let's go, then.' I waited until he was at my side, softer and more at peace. He was going out to change the world, make it better—not destroy it bit by bit. 'Where did you say we were going?'

'I didn't.'

'Right. So where to? Pick a compass direction. There are eight. One will do. For now.'


	3. Breakfast

3) Breakfast

There was something dismal and synchronic about August to James Bennett. He disliked the month. It had had a big, unforgettable impact on his life. He remembered leaving home for the first time at the end of August, as a freshman at Colorado State. He remembered the first serious fight with his wife coming on a hot August evening in New England, back home to see her family, only five weeks after the beginning of marital bliss. He remembered a wayward government employee, a synthoid at that, running from it all, on an overcast day in central Georgia, one year and nine days ago.

Going through old e-mails had prompted this manoeuvre into melancholia. He'd found one labelled from a general, one from Director Stamper, and one from Agent Spencer, dates of all 5 August 2042, the anniversary of Zeta's transformation, from carefully controlled government employee to a treasonous domestic terrorist.

He couldn't think about that now. Other matters pressed more firmly. It was 8:45 in the morning and he hadn't even left for work yet. Considering it was a seventy-five minute drive, he wouldn't walk through the front doors until after ten. His immediate director, Gina Hattie, had already cleared this potential lateness. It was her idea. Bennett was expecting the new member of his task team to arrive at base around noon, and he needn't be there until then.

For the hell of it, he clicked on the last applicant's file, sent to him by Colonel Lemak, the Human Resources director and aide-de-camp to General Logsdon, head of the NSA, suited, situated, stapled in Washington.

Bennett scanned Lemak's note at the top:

_Jim, thought she would do._

Lemak was not known for extreme sentences, Bennett thought wryly.

The file appeared, and he looked unflinchingly at his new employee, Agent Rush. With extensive qualifications, impressive scores on her Agent Entrance Exams six years ago, a list of twelve intricate recommendations, knowledge of the field and administration techniques required, this Agent Rush was precisely what he needed. Lemak had clearly stated that their new team member would have to be a woman, and about that Bennett understood and couldn't care less either way, man, woman, hermaphrodite, whatever, as long as she knew how to shoot a gun and smack West on the back of his head. A woman he got, and, to boot, she was moving out here with her long-time boyfriend.

He smeared away a smile, unavoidably thinking back to the times of Agent West's otherwise ridiculous flaunts of flirtation with their soon-to-be former co-worker, Agent Lee. West would no longer be able to practise his sorry social skills on a patient Marcia Lee. The boy would have to find some other outlet.

Bennett slipped from the chair and went to the window, too many thoughts all at once, the loss of Lee too great.

West would have to break in a new partner . . . and he, James Bennett, would have to find a new best friend.

He glanced over his shoulder. On the edge of his desk sat his mobile. A black and grey and silver thing, square and slim. And oppressively quiet. He wondered if Marcia would call him, the later in the day it became, the moment she realised he hadn't walked through the office doors at precisely eight in the morning. He looked out the window again, to the lake with its still surface, and the gulls circling peaceably above.

Flipping around, stepping into the move, he stared at the door and waited for the footfalls to stop there. His brown-haired, big-eyed son stepped in.

They stared at one another for several extended seconds. Confused, maybe, by the appearance of the other.

Jimmy cocked a brow, shaped like his mother's. 'Aren't you going to work today?'

'Yes—but later. I was able to do some work from here this morning.'

'Oh,' Jimmy threw his gaze around, lasting longest on the computer, screen visible to him.

James took a long stride and hit the Escape key. The screen dimmed. But not quick enough to douse Jimmy's curiosity. Honestly, James couldn't recall if he'd ever been so curious, in the last months of that first teen year.

'Who was that?' asked Jimmy.

Sighing, Bennett turned the office chair under the desk, then held still. There'd be no reason to lie to his son. Jims knew the majority of his father's work, much more than his mother acknowledged. Jo knew one or two things, where the paycheques came from, who her husband's bosses were, but beyond that, details were unimportant, unless it was about Lee. James almost grimaced, recalling how pleased Jo had been to hear of Lee's resignation. Of course, Jimmy had been the one to blurt it out. Jo's confrontation and gloating came later. And, still, she gloated—somehow in the secretly smug way she looked at him now. He couldn't stand it.

'Is that,' Jimmy started when his father wouldn't, 'is that Miss Lee's replacement?'

They watched each other again. Bennett felt the last drops of youth leave him, the small reserve left in almost thirty-seven years. With the loss of it, wasn't Wisdom supposed to fill the vacancy? Wisdom and patience.

Jimmy had his answer. He didn't need it verbalised. 'What's her name? The new agent. Will I get to meet her?'

'Karen Rush,' he replied first. 'And yes, you probably will.' He escorted his son from the office, hand on his shoulder. 'Did you eat breakfast yet?'

'No,' he wandered ahead of his dad, down the wide staircases, and finally into the living room. It wasn't as clean as it used to be, now that his mom spent less and less time at home. She was always out with her friends, or playing tennis at the club, or engaged in another vain activity like his friends' mothers. He was just beginning to understand the growing aversion he had for upper class females. He could pick them out at Wirthton Prep, his private school. The upper class girls giggled into their hands when he walked by, giggling a language he obviously didn't understand. 'Acquisitive girls,' his best friend Frey Millford had said, 'they're no good.'

If that were true, neither was his mother any good. He'd spent time last weekend, when both his parents were gone and he was alone in the house, sifting through her jewellery stash. The things she had! He was sure it could cure hunger in a small, third-world country. And where had she gotten all of it, anyway? He hadn't seen his father and mother exchange such elaborate gifts since the Christmas he was six. He concluded that she bought it for herself.

At least he had Toni. She wasn't one of those snobby upper class girls. Toni didn't mind getting dirty, breaking fingernails, belching and swearing. She was like one of the guys. Except, you know, she had breasts and didn't succumb to the pressures of feminine archetypes by occasionally shaving her legs. Still, he could put up with that. . .

'Jims?' his dad prompted. 'Did you hear me?'

'Yes,' he said quickly. 'Yes, I heard you.' No, he hadn't, not at all.

'Well, how about it?'

How about what? Oh, God, _what_? 'This was exactly his problem.' Those would be the next words out of his dad's mouth, too. He just knew it.

'This is your problem, James.'

The boy groaned and fell to the sofa. He hugged a pillow across him, closing his eyes, waiting for the rest of the lecture.

'You don't pay attention to a single word anyone says to you. You're always a little out of it. Like in a dream world. Well, is it pretty in that world? It'd better be.'

'It's all right,' Jimmy murmured. 'The trees are very—leafy.'

'Don't get smart with me.'

'Dad,' he sighed, 'I'm sorry.'

'You've said that too much to me lately.'

'Well,' Jimmy surrendered the sentence he really wanted to say, 'I am. I am sorry.' He was just glad someone in the family could say those words and mean them. Someone had to say it. Someone had to remind them of forgiveness.

One brawny shoulder leaned into the doorway, between the living room and dining room. Bennett tensed, wondering what it would be like to raise a teenager, remembering how he'd been raised by his own brooding, military father, twenty miles away at a house his parents still lived in. How had Jimmy become so sensitive? It wasn't like Bennett men.

He turned away and grabbed the key to his car by the back door. 'Well, come on, we'll go get breakfast. Then I've got to go to work.'

Jimmy hustled to catch his dad up, not even bothering to correct the patriarch's atrocious grammar. The chance to spend time with Dad outweighed the negativity of lectures and nit-picking. And, despite all of this, he'd much rather be around his dad right now, opposed to his mom. Dad couldn't help being what he was, that he worked too hard and sometimes passed meals and was coming and going at all hours. But Mom could've helped her behaviour, if she wanted. She didn't have to be that way. She just _wanted_ to be. There was something worse in that, an unheeded evil quality Dad lacked.

And maybe it was just his imagination—Toni had said his imagination was too sharp for reality—but since the Fourth of July, Dad had been acting differently. Not bad different. Not really good different either. Just, well . . . Just different.

_I mean,_ Jimmy thought to himself, _when was the last time the two of us went out to breakfast together?_

He wouldn't even begin to complain. He only wanted to add a little caution to this unexpected attention from Dad.

Bob and Norma's was an old, out-of-the-way eatery in the central part of historic downtown Littleton. Catering to hungry patrons of all ages, it was one of Jimmy's favourite places, and so frequented by Frey, Toni, and a couple of his other friends, him along with them, that several of the servers recognised him, by his messy brown and gold hair, round green-grey eyes, articulate speech, and impressive posture. They called him 'Lord Jim'.

'Good morning, Lord Jim,' said their server, Amber, as she set down glasses of water to the table. 'This your dad?'

'Yes, it is he.' Jimmy beamed. He ignored the weird look given to him by Dad.

Amber exchanged pleasantries with Jimmy's dad, then took their order. Jimmy already knew what he wanted, and James hardly swayed from the first thing he saw on the menu. Amber was returning with a cup of black coffee when James noticed who just walked through the door. For Jimmy's sake, he held in a groan.

'Look who it is.' He eyed the foyer. Jimmy turned around and saw a pepper-haired, big-shouldered man with the host, waiting to be seated. Jimmy flew out of the chair, shouting 'Grandpa!' And, inevitably, Grandpa sat with them.

In his mid-sixties, retired from the military only a handful of years, Lou 'Spots' Bennett tolerated his son, adored his grandson, and was very vocal about the deficiencies of both persons, father and son. James usually heard never-ending mumbles about the world's most awful things: democrats, immigrants, foreigners, inflation, to name but a few. But as much a burr and bigot as Lou Bennett was, James determined his father to be in a decent mood that morning.

'Mom at one of her volunteering things today?' James started.

'Yeah, I left her to it.' Spots chuckled. 'I haven't been up very long myself.'

'Really, Grandpa?'

'That's right, if you can believe it, Jims. Your old grandpa finally got to sleep in this morning. How about that, huh? Now I'm hungry. Where's that waitress? I hope she speaks English.' He made a futile attempt to look around for a server, appearing, in his mind, as a leggy brunette with a dimple in her left cheek. He wasn't surprised when Amber came to the table, the petite brunette with lips like the Grand Canyon, bringing a second cup of coffee.

She looked at the men individually. 'Well, I had no idea I'd be waiting on three generations of Bennetts this morning. Isn't it my lucky day! What would you like, Colonel?'

'Let's see here . . . I'd like three eggs, over easy, a dish of sweet relish on the side, two pieces of wheat toast, and make them pretty brown, would you? And a carafe of OJ. Got that?' Amber repeated the order. He nodded, dismissing the server. 'Oh, Jimbo, I wanted to tell you something. But, first.' He fished a bit of pocket change out and gave it to Jimmy. 'Go put it in the jukebox, and play a song for your old grandpa, okay?'

Jimmy knew he was being dismissed from the table, yet he went off anyway. As soon as he was from earshot, Spots said his point.

'Doc Schilling—you know Miles, don't you?—well, he's doing a second autopsy on Irving Houston.'

James about spat out his coffee. He wiped his lips uncouthly. 'He's—what? When? And why?'

Rock 'n' roll from the 1970's filled Bob and Norma's. Jefferson Airplane's guitars and vocals reached Spots' ears. Jimmy knew his grandpa's musical tastes very well. Now that the worst of the conversation was over, neither Bennett minded Jimmy's return, though the kid hesitantly approached the table.

Spots watched his son intensely. For a moment, the old lament was there. The same weary song of all military families: Why hadn't James chosen as his father had, and headed for the Army? Not the Marines. Anything but the Marines. And now working for the NSA, like some techie, some geek, it didn't make sense. That's what the NSA had been in Lou Bennett's time: interception of communicative intelligence data. What would the NSA do with the brawn and brains of James Bennett? Lou tried to find out as much as he could, with his high clearance level in the Army, just before he retired. But that was five years ago. Obviously James was assigned to a different project now. Something so bad it gave dark rings under his eyes, sleeplessness, moodiness, irritability, a sense of aloneness. He wished again, and not for the last time, that James would leave the NSA and go back to the Marines—or quit both altogether and help his brother full-time at the reservoir marina. It was the only way his son would be professionally happy. Personal happiness was different, as always.

He sighed and picked up the coffee mug. 'Saw Miles down at the New Englewood Club yesterday eve. We played a few holes of golf together. Old fart's got a handicap you wouldn't believe! And anyway, told me about it himself. Said it didn't sit right with him, a guy like Irving Houston dying of a massive coronary. He's the El Paso county M.E., so he can do whatever he wants; he can override things like that.'

'Who was the original M.E. that did the autopsy? Anyone I know?'

Spots shook his head. 'Don't recall the name, and it didn't ring any bells with me. But I thought you'd find this interesting.'

Irving Houston was a particular government scientist that Lou Bennett had met frequently at the Englewood Club, the country club where the hoity-toity of the military world played obligatory social sports, racquetball and golf among them. Jimmy even went occasionally, with his Grandpa and Grandma, with a friend of his, to practise archery and play a few games of cricket. He was good at both, a multi-talented athlete, and would play on Club teams next year, when he was old enough.

James himself had never met Irving Houston. He'd only heard about him while doing significant research on Infiltration Units, all of them, all seven, created over the last four years. It was by mere chance that James discovered his dad knew one of those scientists, the semi-retired Irving Houston. The Houston family were staples in Colorado Springs, in all of El Paso county, with all the drama that comes from big money and big expectations. Bennett didn't envy them their wealth and business success—they clearly lacked personal success, anyway. But he did mind that the eldest Houston had died last month, despite a routine visit to the doctor two weeks before, and getting a clean bill of health. It bothered Bennett because Houston was the twelfth Infiltration Unit scientist to die since 2039. Why shouldn't it be a serial killer? Except that every scientist died a different way, and only two met with suspicious, more violent deaths, and those happened to be the only two women to meet their ends, so far. Bennett tried to recall if the list had any other females, but hunger pains banging on his ribs ruined concentration.

Now Irving Houston's corpse was going to be opened and re-examined. James would be sure someone called Dr Schilling's office to inveigle a copy of the new autopsy, somewhere he can get his hands on it. The NSA, as far as he knew, was happily ignoring the ever-growing line of dying scientists. But maybe if he made enough noise that would change. If Schilling found the slightest thing out of place, it might be enough.

The phone on his belt clip jiggled. With his dad and Jimmy talking baseball standings, James saw who the call was from. Dead weight in his chest dropped another two inches nearer his stomach.

'Good morning, dear wife of mine.'

'Don't patronise me. Is Jimmy with you?' Jo sounded irritated, and outdoors. Sparrows chirped in the background.

'He's right here.'

Jimmy knew Dad was on the phone with Mom. He didn't say anything and sucked milk through a straw.

'Dammit, James, what are you doing?'

'I'm having breakfast with my son and my father. And how was your morning?' He tried to sound easy-going while her voice had become fingernails scratching his insides. Someone should've warned him—his own father, maybe, or one of his college buddies—someone should've warned him that marriage can be total torture, if it's not to the right person. It wasn't wonderful, blissful—with Jo it never had been. Just a daily struggle to make something so incompatible work as smoothly as possible.

His declaration stumped Jo. She stuttered before collecting herself. 'I thought . . . Don't you have to be at work today?'

'Not until later. Before noon, at any rate.'

'Around noon? I'm meeting Greg and Beth for lunch at eleven-thirty, so I won't be at home.'

This was a legitimate exercise in Jo's often absent humility. Beth was one of Jo's co-workers, Greg Beth's husband. They'd lost their little five-year-old to disease three weeks ago, and Jo visited them to keep up their faltering spirits. It was the only selfless act Jo did on a regular basis. She was ten times more selfish than he was, no matter what she screamed at him. Even if they went out to eat, James had to leave extra money on the table for tip, as Jo's idea of tipping was ten percent. The thought made him cringe.

'Well, Jimmy will find something to do. It's his last week of break before school starts. He can have Frey over, and the two of them can tear up the place.'

Dad winked at him, but Jimmy frowned. A week. A solid week, and he'd be back at Wormton—as all the students called it. But he was kinda glad Mom wouldn't be home. On impulse, he turned to his grandpa.

'May I spend the day with you instead, Grandpa?'

Spots held the back of Jimmy's neck and squeezed affectionately. 'Sure you can. I don't have a plan for the day. But we can wing it.'

'Jims is spending the day with my dad,' James informed Jo. 'So that takes care of that. I guess I'll go on to work then. You going to be home for dinner?' It used to be that Jo would ask _him_ that question, now it was reversed. Things had been so quiet with Zeta lately, and with Lee leaving, with Rush coming, Bennett had less work to do, and was frequently home by six-thirty. Jo was always gone, admitted to in their last row, about a week ago. Four days before, Jimmy came home from a baseball game with his friends to find the house empty, and it was already five-thirty. James got home about an hour later, and Jo still hadn't come home. The two of them took turns calling her phone, but she'd turned it off. Then at 9:45 she paraded in, like nothing had happened, no fault committed. Another fight ensued, as clockwork, as the moon cycles; and it only ended when James calmly shut himself in his attic office. He wasn't losing his temper as much as Jo these days. As he'd told her, he put up with too much at work to come home and argue. The enthusiasm wasn't in him anymore.

He hung up the phone without saying farewell and giving Jo no chance to comment. Barely had he let his hand up on it when it jiggled again. 'Now what?' he murmured testily, anticipating Jo's return call. Instead, another number was there, and another name.

'Bennett.'

'Jim, where are you?'

'Having breakfast with my son and father.'

'Oh . . . should I call you back?'

'No, wait, hang on. I think Jims wants to say something to you.'

'Okay, sure.'

James handed the phone to Jimmy. He didn't say who it was. Taking it, confused, Jimmy put it to his ear.

'Hello?'

'Hey, Jim-Jam. Enjoying breakfast with your dad?'

'Oh, Miss Lee, it's you! And yes, yes I am. Grandpa's here, too.'

But Grandpa, at that moment, was eyeballing James with daggers and bullets and all other flying projectiles. James ignored him. Jimmy adored Lee. It was beneficial for him to have some other adult to look up to that wasn't related, or, additionally, a nosy pain in the ass, like Spots. Related and nosy. James didn't know how he stood it.

'I'm glad I've got the chance to talk to you, Jimmy,' Marcia said. She was sitting in her sunny office on the south-eastern side of the building, playing solitaire on the computer and waiting for the day's most exciting event to commence. 'There's a favour I wanted to ask you.'

'What's that?'

'Well, my brother's coming to town this weekend, and I've got tickets to see the Rockies play Sunday afternoon. But Arlo, that's my brother, he doesn't know anything about the Rockies, and I'm not very knowledgeable myself. So I thought we should have an expert around. You up for it?'

'Am I! You're kidding! Of course I'm up for it!'

'Okay, great. Don't forget to ask your dad.'

Jimmy did, right at that moment. 'Dad! Miss Lee wants to take me to a Rockies game Sunday, with her brother. May I go? Please?'

'I don't see why not,' James said slowly.

Jimmy gushed his eagerness, but soon enough handed the phone back. 'She wants to talk to you.'

He could imagine why. 'Marcia, you're his hero. The boy loves you.'

'Yeah, sorry about that,' she laughed. 'He's coming more for me than Arlo. I love my brother, but he can be a pinecone in the butt. Jim-Jam will be my balm in Gilead. When are you coming in?'

A quick look at the watch told him when he'd have to leave. It was already 9:53. 'They're just bringing us our food now. But we're Bennett men: We can eat quickly, and do. I'll be there around eleven-fifteen. Is Rush there yet?'

'Not yet. West is patrolling the hallways in anticipation. He said he'll call me the second she lands.'

'I bet he's a handful today.'

'Quite. He kept getting up from his desk and walking around. It made me so nervous I finally had to kick him out of the office. Took me two hours to clean off my computer. Do you believe that? Two hours. Mostly going through old e-mails.' She stopped there, though, to James, it sounded as if there was an extension to that thought. She never finished it. 'Well, when you get here, come on up to the office, if you can. The three of us should be here when Hattie gives us the call.'

'Yeah, then we'll all be filed into the NSA's version of kiss-and-cry, and happily meet the newest member of our little team.'

'You're making us sound like cute and fluffy bunnies again. This is really happening so suddenly. I am glad that Lemak enabled expedience in this case, as a favour to us all.'

'He didn't have a choice.'

Marcia was quiet for a moment. 'I know. But I'm still grateful.'

'You're going to make Director Goubeaux a very happy man.'

She snickered. 'I'm only going to work for him, not marry him.'

'And all wept for joy. But his gain is Director Hattie's loss, you know.'

'That's the rumour, yes. I'd better go. The guys are here to scrape my name off the door. Isn't that wonderful?' Bitter sarcasm and rue tightened her thin tone. 'I'll see you later, Jim. Have a nice breakfast.'

'I'm trying. Bye.'

She hung up first and Bennett followed. The phone remained quiet after he put it down. Jimmy was already halfway through his French toast when he abruptly ran to the bathroom. James watched him go.

'I told him not to drink milk, but does he listen?' He stabbed at his ham patty and poked at his hash browns.

Spots enjoyed big bites, layering eggs on toast, and talking with his mouth full. 'So that was Agent Lee?'

'Yes.' It was best to remain terse when dealing with sensitive subjects, Lee and work combining two sensitive subjects into a whole.

'I thought she was leaving.'

'She's moving to—to another side of the building, not until Monday.'

'Good. Got a new agent picked out yet?'

'Yes. She's coming sometime today.'

'Which is why you have to be there at noon.'

'Yes. Could you pass me the pepper?' James grabbed it and threw some on the bland hash browns.

Spots wiped his mouth and decided to keep his promise to Jimmy. It would be a pain to mention it to Jimbo, but a promise to your thirteen-year-old grandson is far more important than a potential verbal battle with a former Marine. 'You know, Jimbo, I've been thinking.'

'That's wicked of you, Dad. I might have to tell Mom.'

Bent over his plate, Spots smashed his eggs with the tines of his fork. He worked some food off his teeth with his tongue. 'I think you and Jo should, you know, consider a legal separation.'

The pepper fell out of James's hand, clanked to the corner of the plate, thudded against the table, and dropped dead on the carpet, by his feet. He picked it up and slammed it down in the centre, next to the carafe of orange juice.

'Dad,' he said through fury and clenched teeth, 'don't even start. Not . . . not today. Not now.'

'You need to do something, Jimbo, before she comes after you and takes you to the cleaners. And it isn't just me,' Spots went on, verging on sympathy, 'your mother thinks you should, too. And you might think Jims is blind, but he's not blind.'

'I never thought he was.'

'He thinks you ought to be with Marcia.'

James stabbed his ham so strongly that the fork skidded across the ceramic. He tried to chew but the food was like lead.

'Well, that's not exactly what he said. He said he wished you could laugh again, be a little more carefree, like you are when Agent Lee's around.'

'When did Jims _ever_ see me and Marcia together? When?'

Spots lifted his shoulders helplessly. 'How should I know? Maybe the boy doesn't have to see. He's got ears as well as eyes.' He went back to his coffee. 'You may not know it, Jimbo, as you're sometimes too thick in the head, and too stubborn, like me—but we none of us want to see you unhappy. I think you understand me.'

'Yeah . . . yeah, I understand you, Dad.'

'You need to do something, Jimbo. For the boy's sake. But you don't love Jo, and she hates you, thinks you're a real stick-in-the-mud. Aren't you sick of being miserable? And for what? There's gonna be a time when it'll hurt Jims more than it protects him. Anyway, I've said my bit, and I'm none the wiser for it. The rest is up to you.'

The table was ten degrees cooler when Jimmy returned. Finishing his meal, he eyed Dad and Grandpa occasionally, certain that a change had come. He picked up knife and fork and tried to get hungry again.

'Were you two talking about me when I wasn't here?' Occupying time nicely, he continued to cut the remainder of his French toast into triangles and square bites.

'No, we weren't,' James said.

Spots leaned into Jimmy, sitting next to him. 'We were talking about grown-up stuff.'

Fearfully, Jimmy ogled his dad. Finding no answers there, he slipped his knife and fork from his fingers. 'That's even worse than talking about me.'

James didn't know what to say. His heart ached thinking about his son's awareness of the malcontent brewing in the household. Only worry consumed him. How was he supposed to protect Jimmy from the cruelties of the world when those cruelties were the fault of ordinary people? Jimmy ought to grow up in a changed world from his father and grandfather, a world without wars, without global fears. And wasn't he trying to do that, by working for the NSA? But sometimes James had a sick, sinking feeling that his son was a better person than he was. Maybe that's the way it was with generations, they got smarter, more aware of mistakes, less likely to blame someone else, more likely to take responsibility. Jimmy was immensely responsible. And James couldn't even own up to a destroyed marriage and a wayward career—a marriage destroyed, possibly, by his career and the choices he'd made to further it. He should never had asked Jo to leave all her east coast connexions and start over in Colorado. That was the cause of fissure between them, a thing which exponentially grew wider and wider, shading, scouring their union. It was his choice, and he'd said he'd go, whether or not she came with him. He just hadn't expected her to come with him.

He thought through things, the bad and the good, as the three of them ate.

Finally, Spots grabbed the bill and examined it. 'I'll get this. Get the tip, would you, Jimbo?'

Jimmy slipped ahead of Grandpa and Dad in the parking lot. He was looking for Grandpa's truck. Spots walked with James.

'He's a smart kid, Jimbo, a real smart kid.'

'I know. Sometimes I talk to him and it's like talking to a grammar instructor. He corrects me all the time. And he has such a head for knowledge. I don't know how he manages to cram all that in there, let alone hold onto it.'

'Well, I know he won't have a problem telling Agent Lee—'

'Marcia, Dad—her name is Marcia. You can't vitiate her just by calling her Agent Lee all the time.'

'Er,' Spots was momentarily taken aback by the outburst, but Jimbo had a point: perhaps he had tried vitiating her, subconsciously of course; he liked Agent Lee—Marcia—even if she was half Chinese. 'No problem telling Marcia and her brother all the stats they want to know about all the Rockies players on Sunday. He probably even knows their slugging percentages.'

'Oh, I'm sure he does.'

'I don't know what we'll do today, but we'll find something. Maybe we'll go visit Littles at the marina.'

Littles was the oldest sibling, Lou Bennett, Jr. Everyone called him Littles because he was Little Lou. Formerly of the Army, was Littles, until he lost some toes in a training accident while a sergeant. He returned to Colorado, brought his wife and two kids, and started a marina. Littles was the happiest Bennett of them all. The littlest Bennett, the only daughter, six years younger than James, was currently stationed in Norway, a proud member of an engineering corps. The Bennetts were so full of military history that, now he'd retired, Spots was thinking of drawing out a genealogical study of the Bennetts, highlighting those with military careers.

The one thing James wouldn't do with Jimmy was force him into the military. Too sensitive, even if he was smart and athletic, the military might brainwash Jimmy, and destroy all signs of uniqueness in him. At least Jimmy had unique qualities.

'See ya, Dad,' Jimmy waved farewell from the open doorway of Grandpa's truck.

James mimicked the wave and slipped into his sedan. Jimmy watched him drive out of the parking lot and onto West Alamo. Then he buckled his safety belt as Grandpa started the engine.

'Did you tell him?' Jimmy couldn't hold his excitement. 'Did you talk to him about it?'

Spots gave one of his warm, lengthy chuckles. 'I got a chance when you escaped into the bathroom. That was a clever manoeuvre.'

'Wasn't it! A ruse well played! So he did talk to you then, huh? What'd he say? What'd he _say_?'

'I think I almost gave him a heart attack, but I told him what I thought, and I said that you knew what was going on, even if he didn't believe me. He knows you're not stupid.'

'But now he knows that I know how unhappy he is. And Mom isn't happy. I mean, Mom lives in her own world. And Dad kinda lives in his own world, too. But I'm stuck somewhere in the middle. I'd really rather it just be Dad and me. I love Mom, but she doesn't really seem part of us anymore. She's never around. And she's so different from us, with her rich friends and snobby holier-than-thou attitude. Really, I love Mom, but she's not one of my favourite people.' Jimmy scanned the traffic only superficially, his thoughts on his parents. 'What'd he say? Come on, Grandpa!'

'He didn't say much of anything, actually.'

'Well _that's_ disappointing. I hope you're not holding out on me.'

'I wouldn't risk it. You might recite the entire "A" section of the dictionary, and where would that leave me? Honestly, what'd you think he do, Jimmy? Flat out say that he wants a divorce? That's not how grownups handle problems. And you know your father: he's not going to rush into anything. Even if he decides he wants to, it could be dragged on for years, tied up legally.'

'I understand that part of it.'

'Oh?' Spots glanced at him.

'Lots of kids at Worm—Wirthton—have divorced parents.'

'I can imagine. Just give your father some time, Jimmy, he'll straighten things out. He's got a lot going on at work, too.'

'I know, with Miss Lee leaving and everything. That sucks.'

'Well, she's still in Colorado, so you just keep counting your blessings.'

Jimmy grumbled an agreement, but nonetheless pouted for a few seconds. 'Dad can't really be left to his own devices though, Grandpa. If it were up to him, he'd just go on like he always has.'

'I'm not sure about that. I think you're underestimating your father's acumen. He's more accepting of change than he used to be. Something must've happened to make him think about it.' As soon as the sentence was out, Spots wanted to inhale it back in. But, too late!

Jimmy went quiet. He adjusted the strap of the seatbelt and stared out the window. The foothills rose in the west, behind the haze of heat in the desert city. Grandpa headed south towards the reservoir. Jimmy supposed they were on their way to see Uncle Littles and Aunt Glenna, and that was all right with him.

'Something to make him change his mind,' he murmured to the window. 'Wonder what that could've been?' He threw a mischievous glance at Grandpa. Then, smirking to himself, he enjoyed the scenery of suburban Denver trickling by outside the pane. 'Or _who_ that could've been?'


	4. Hands

4) Hands

Precious bits of metal, scattered here and there against the savannah grassland, caught slips of moonlight and glistened in the dark. Only the heavens above knew the thousands of smooth pieces beneath crevices and flora hidden. All those parts created a whole, and an ambiguous sense of understanding crowned him, even before the first hints of dawn came, before the moon set against the horizon of steppes and valleys wild. He drew in a quivering breath; he kept himself sane, collected, this way. After all, he may also lose this bizarre sense of reality, gleaned only from artefacts blown across five hundred feet of Earth's most profound nothingness.

Zeta lay in those scraps.

Zeta.

He felt the pain seep like a swift current into his chest, rending him in two. The tears streaming from his eyes matched the river of agony.

This couldn't be happening. Not now. He'd done everything he could, hadn't he? And now it was lost. The great hope of the world, lost. Lost on a savannah in south-central Mexico . . .

Without Zeta, there would be no more hope.

Surely he wasn't the only one who understood this. Others would come, from over the hills and down into the dales, they would come, and Zeta, all those pieces of him, would be brought together into a single, functioning unit once more.

Come strangers. Come. We have a job to do.

Come strangers. Come. Wake up.

Wake up.

'Wake up,' a voice prodded him, from the subconscious to the conscious, then a finger poke in his shoulder made his eyes open against his will. He squinted, expecting light, only finding dimness. The scents returned: musty old wood and clean hay, followed by the stink of labouring animals, horses and cattle. He sniffed to test his functions, and blinked, testing the dryness of his eyes. Daylight snuck in from somewhere beyond him, the ends of the barn open. Angling his head, he saw three boys, about his own age, hovering around, looking down on him, grinning.

'Come with us,' the youngest, brightest one said. 'Esperanza is at the pond again.'

Cackling came from the other boys. Bucky passed a hand across his eyes then adjusted his seat, hands tossed behind him. The surroundings were as he'd left them: the small barn on his grandmother's property in Mexico, mid-afternoon, perhaps by now early evening. The boys were from the village, had befriended Bucky a year or more ago. Closer acquaintances now that Bucky spent more time at his grandmother's. Truthfully, the only thing they did was roam around Oaxaca looking for ways to pass the time.

Esperanza, Bucky suddenly recalled, was one of those ways to pass time. He had help to his feet and was soon running down the dirt footpath behind the boys. They scrambled and voiced a lewd common interest in Esperanza, the most beautiful woman in all Oaxaca. With their average age of thirteen, these boys had little interest in anything else in the world, unless it had some curves and breasts.

Bucky stumbled a little at a rock jutting from the dusty dirt. He rose to catch the scene of downtown Oaxaca below. Pastel buildings with dark, inset windows, flat or tiled roofs, church steeples, the rich foliage of the plazas, and, even from that distance, the patchwork of bright colours from the street market.

The pond Esperanza and others used recreationally was on the west end of the city. They made it there, in a flat jog, in seven minutes. Along the way, passing through the edges of the city, they met other boys, some known to them, some not, and soon there were nine, eleven, fourteen boys, ranging from eleven to sixteen, heading for the pond. It was more the race to the pond that killed the time. Though, when he got there, out of breath and panting, Bucky was one of the first to see Esperanza, and he remembered why he'd run. She really was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

They hid behind the thick underbrush surrounding the oasis. Streams of golden-white sun were deadened in the canopy above, shadiness their friend in those long minutes as they spied. Esperanza lay in the haloing luminance on a brown beach towel, at water's hem. Two of her girlfriends were there, Clarita and Pilar. They were beautiful, too, with glowing skin and wide, flirty smiles. But everyone loved Esperanza. Something airy and lovely in the soft way she moved, in the complacent way she held your gaze when she spoke to you, tones dulcet and breathy. She cuddled you without moving. This shining star-quality made you want to love her, give her everything, and the only thing you wanted in return was a single, long-lasting kiss.

The breeze rose then and brushed their faces with the women's scent, tanning oil and sweet pond water. Bucky lifted his chin into it, trying to make it linger, but it faded quickly.

One of the boys suddenly giggled when Esperanza let down her hair. And, like Rapunzel, it slipped in silky ebony waves across her shoulders, sculpted back, nearly to her waist. Clarita tilted to Esperanza, Pilar leaning in to be part of the intimate discourse. Esperanza laughed, and the whole company of boys sighed in ecstasy, so perfect was her laugh, and the slender throat that produced it. Her dark eyes, with so much soul in them, searched the underbrush and discovered young faces therein concealed.

'You can come out! I see you!' She pointed a delicate finger in their direction, winking one eye. She seemed to be pointing directly at Bucky.

Most of the boys fled. Bucky and his three companions remained. Glancing at his friends, he shrugged, then stepped out of the underbrush, scraping his hand on a branch, ignoring the pain, and appeared in front of Clarita, Pilar, and Esperanza.

The latter turned around, from her stomach and elbows to her bottom, folding her arms about slim knees drawn to her ample chest. Up close, her radiant skin was pearly from oil and heat. Her thick hair whipped into her face, and she returned it behind her ears.

'_Hola, pajero.'_

This unexpected taunt brought a smirk to his lips. '_Hola, buenona. ¿Como està?_' If she could jibe him, he could do it right back. Even if she was beautiful. Problem is with beautiful women, they know how they look, and that's all they're concerned about. Maybe it was a little less obvious in Esperanza's case, and maybe not.

They studied each other. Esperanza angled her head to spy the underbrush where he'd appeared. She raised her thin eyebrows and stared at him again.

'Anyone else with you?'

'No. They left. Nothing better than hens, you know.'

Clarita and Pilar snickered behind their hands. Esperanza kept on her pretty, playful smile but did not laugh. 'You're the American boy, aren't you? Margarita Deligo's grandson. I forget your name.'

'Bucky.' He paused. 'Diablo around here, and to my grandma.'

'That's right. Well, _poco_ Diablo,' she turned back on her stomach and lifted the bottle of tanning lotion towards him, 'it's time for my second coat. Would you mind terribly?'

Perhaps they were having fun at his expense, he couldn't be sure. But Esperanza's genuine nature all the other moments he'd glimpsed her, in and around the village, at church on Sundays, lies never crossed her lips and mockery was a formidable sin. He reached for the bottle, brought up the cap, and knelt next to her on the shifting sand. She pooled her hair to one side, tucked it beneath her shoulder, and closed her eyes.

'What are you doing in Oaxaca again, _poco_ Diablo?'

To make sure he wasn't dreaming, he rose his head to see Clarita and Pilar. Pilar was reading a romance novel, and Clarita was on her mobile, chatting animatedly. He squeezed tanning oil into the small of Esperanza's back. The scent whirled his senses.

'I'm recuperating at my grandma's. I ran into some trouble in America, and I almost got thrown out of school.'

'You came to smooth your feathers?' She popped open an eye but immediately closed it again. 'Have you done the Devil's work, _poco_ Diablo?'

'No,' he snickered again, slowly applying the lotion and wondering why this surreal feeling wouldn't abate. 'I, er, kinda blew up one of the science rooms with a new experiment I was working on.'

'Some experiment. What was it?'

'A new holographic emitter. I like holography.'

She laughed kindly, sweetly, musically. It ran like liquid into him, and came from his pores as sweat and steam, and out of the trenches of his mind as sex and glory.

'I heard _mitotes_ around Oaxaca that Margarita's grandson was a genius, but I didn't believe it.'

'Gossip is gossip,' he said, 'I can't help what people say.'

'You are modest, _poco_ Diablo. Very modest. Must be the Mexican in you, not the American. What is it like, America? I have never been.'

'Crowded,' he said automatically, now on her neck and the upper shoulders. 'No room to breathe. I like it down here. I can breathe, at least, and have long conversations with chickens and cats and beautiful women I don't know very well. Do you know you drive all the boys in the village crazy with your beauty?'

'I know,' she said it sadly, tone remote, drawn away from herself. 'I don't mean to. But you are a gentleman, aren't you?'

'I wouldn't spy on you if you were naked, if that's what you mean.'

The melodic laugh released into the wild again. 'A gentleman you are. Well, _poco_ Diablo, gentleman,' she was up on her elbows and taking the tanning oil back from him, 'thank you for your help.'

'You're welcome.' He was about to rise when she covered one of his hands with hers, holding it with a soft squeeze.

She traced the outline of the fresh scratch beneath a tame fingertip. 'You have very lovely hands.' Abruptly, she let go, head downward. 'Do nice things with them, won't you? Genius isn't everything—and sometimes genius isn't the Lord's work. _Hasta luego, poco _Diablo_. Gracias._'

He was dismissed. As he reached the trees, he looked back. Esperanza rested her chin to folded wrists, and stared into the nothing in front of her. Was she lost in dreams or thoughts? Her friends on either side seemed indifferent to her presence. Esperanza lay as though alone.

Seeing that his friends had gone, likely in fright at being caught in perverse spying, Bucky took the trail home. The pace was slow, the incline long, but within twenty minutes he reached the hillside home of his grandmother. She was on the porch swing, with iced tea and a cat nearby, and in the dirt-ridden yard with clumps of grass sat two dogs. As he approached, the dogs barked warnings, warnings turning to greetings as they sniffed his hands and recognition came. He took the vacant seat beside Margarita, only after lifting the cat now held in his arms.

'Are you hungry?' Margarita said after some moments. He shook his head. She handed him her glass of tea, and he sipped. It was returned without a word. 'Did you decide when you are going back?'

'Soon,' he murmured. The cat leaped from his meek hold and jumped the railing. 'What do you know about Esperanza?'

Though there must be two dozen girls in Oaxaca with that name, Margarita knew which one he referenced. She put back an out of place piece of whitening hair and sighed.

'Her father died earlier this year. It was hard on her. If she doesn't get married soon, I worry she'll join the church.'

'Really? As a nun?'

'What else?'

'Why would that worry you?'

Margarita hardened and shook her head. 'Because it seems like such a waste. She can't just give in to grief and expect God to lessen all her troubles. There must be an equal amount of prayer and action in a person's life. Maybe the prayer won't bring results, but the action most definitely will.'

'Maybe people should pray for the willpower to act.' They smiled at each other. Margie was really the only woman in the world who understood him. Although he was technologically savvy—there was no object without a circuit board he couldn't fathom—and Margie was an artist, they were joined by souls more kindred than anything either had ever experienced. They loved each other keenly.

'Just out of curiosity,' she started, 'why ask me this?'

'I just came back from a very odd visit with her.' He explained in light detail, leaving out the bit about all the boys in Oaxaca lining up to see her in a two-piece bathing suit that left little to the imagination—or maybe a whole lot to the imagination. 'She seemed sad. I didn't know about her father. How did he die?'

'Boating accident off the coast. Her mother and she survived, but the ship sank and Perico drowned.' She touched his shoulder, the affection unmistakable. 'There is a bright side.'

'Let me guess,' and went on after a second, already knowing, 'she inherited a great deal of money, nearly enough to buy all of Oaxaca and then some.'

'I don't know about the last embellishment, but you've guessed enough of the truth. Don't think too much, Grandson.' On her feet, she gave him the tea and returned to the cool house.

Bucky wiped sweat from his brow. A few minutes passed, when he made no action but to sip the tea and stare into the limitless view. He loved being with Margie, on Margie's tiny farm on a tiny hillside overlooking tiny Oaxaca. Fairly large in population, actually, it felt small after the concrete sterility of San Diego and the suburban sprawl of stiff Oceanside. Mexico had his problems, and Oaxaca its own dilemmas, but no other place he'd ever been felt more like home. He loathed returning to Oceanside, back to Sorben, the endless monotony of ho-hum classes that bored him because he was too smart for laughably easy lessons. Frustrated with the curriculum, as well as the school system, he'd taken on side projects, light contract work for companies throughout the United States. Head-hunters solicited his skills mostly through word-of-mouth from influential persons within Sorben's intellectual circle. At last he had defeated the system that held tightly to him, and breathed the wonder of America's long-standing, interminable belief in capitalism.

Esperanza leaked into his thoughts. He lifted his hands and looked into the lines of his palms, never really noticing them before. Women had a way of making a guy notice things he never would normally. And Esperanza was stationary in his heart now, the end corner, down a lazy trail, where pity dozed. The manly desire to do something good for her was unquenchable. How to heal a woman's sorrow? He'd never known someone so pitiable before. And hardly anyone was worth his precious time.

In his small bedroom in the front of the house, he lifted the eye patch monitor over his head and adjusted the one-inch screen in front of his right eye. Situated on the bed, pillows against his back, he began to browse the internet. The headset beside his cheek picked up said pronunciations: He spoke Perico Ortenegerra, and a search ensued.

Too many results came up. He had to limit his search with nouns: boat, accident, Mexico. This brought up a news clipping from the local Oaxaca paper, about the drowning of Perico Ortenegerra.

Reading it thoroughly the first time, his fingers tingled. Reading it rapidly the second time, he immediately brought up an e-mail programme. He typed out the message, thin lines of information on Perico Ortenegerra, and sent it back to himself, heavily encrypted. He trusted no communications companies to send his e-mail into the vast, twirling lines of the internet without interception; he encrypted everything these days.

He felt a little better with the e-mail sent and the information protected. At a specific website dedicated to everyone's favourite renegade robot and his blonde-haired queen of the runaways, Bucky scanned for their most recent whereabouts. No one seemed to know anything. The last forum post was made four days ago, and had nothing to do with a Zeta sighting, unfortunately. What did he expect from a bunch of tech thieves and pirates? If they weren't talking about Zeta, they were talking about their favourite software, hardware, or geeky television shows. More than ninety-five percent on that website didn't use legitimate identities. They all went by clever, and not so clever, handles. Bucky had identities all over the internet, in various forms and sites as varied as his interests, from pop culture to CIA-run bulletin boards. Sometimes he was Diablo. Sometimes Carbon. Occasionally Kid Genius. He was never Bucky. That was too prosaic.

Using an instant message programme, he signed in and waited to see if Ro's username popped up on his list of friends. It didn't, but that didn't mean she wasn't on. He sent a message to her to see if it would go through. When it did, he waited, breath stopped.

A chime brought it back to him.

'What do you want?'

No doubt it was Ro. Only she could be so rude all at once. Talking to her was like getting hit with a baseball bat repeatedly.

He cracked his knuckles but spoke and didn't type. Voice recognition software heard his phonetics and typed it for him. 'Hello, Ro. Let me talk to Zee real quick.'

'Ugh, fine. Hold on.'

A second later and Zee was typing. Bucky knew their differences, their idiosyncrasies. Ro's grammar was poor and she typed wicked fast, 100 words per minute sometimes. Zee used proper grammar and capitalisation, and typed much slower, the fastest speed Bucky ever clocked him at was 75 words per minute. The premiere discovery of this deficiency caused Bucky to question the physical adroitness of synthoids, until Zee explained he typed slowly on purpose, when in public, to limit chance glances. But the punctuation and capitalisation, well, that was purely Zee.

'Hello, Bucky! I am glad to hear from you!'

'Zee, I have some information for you.'

'Really! How delightful! On Dr Selig?'

'Not directly, though I keep looking for him. I know you're looking into the death of the scientists, aren't you?'

'Yes, we have been. Do you have any idea how difficult it is? We're about to give up.'

'Well, I have another one for you. A local girl here lost her father in a boating accident in April. Almost killed her and her mother, too. His name's Perico Ortenegerra. Can you remember that?'

'Of course I can. Do you have any further information? It sounds quite interesting.'

'NMI.'

Zee paused. 'What's NMI stand for, Ro, in e-talk?'

'Uh, huh?' She read over his shoulder. 'No more info.'

'Yes, of course. Thank you.'

Bucky went right on type-talking. 'We shouldn't talk long, anyway, I don't know who's watching this site. Wherever you are, you'd better leave—leave now.'

'Thank you, Bucky.'

'You're welcome. Go away now.'

'All right, we will! Good-bye, friend!'

Bucky peeled off the eyepiece and tossed it to the end of the bed. He put his hand behind his head and huffed. Tears of frustration pooled into his eyes. Unable to control his temper, he grabbed a pillow and threw it against the back of the door. It didn't help much, but at least he could, for a second, pretend the pillow and the door were the NSA agents after an innocent, falsely-accused robot of phenomenal strength and mind.

Tomorrow he'd go back to Oceanside.


	5. Rush

5) Rush

West spit into the corner of the white handkerchief, right above the pale blue embroidered initials 'O.H.W.' Setting the corner of the poly-cotton blend to the tip of his loafer, he rubbed vigorously for a few seconds. Then he peeled the hanky away. Gone was the nearly invisible trace of dirt. He held his foot back, turning it at the ankle, to admire the brilliant shine. One had to be spotless on a day full of special occasion. With a glance at his watch, he decided he had time enough to check himself in the mirror again. The bathroom door swung behind him, the room empty except for one stall. Checking himself in the mirror, he tried to flatten down his hair. Water from the faucet didn't help much, and now he had a damp head.

_Great, just great. Damp-headed fool!_

The toilet flushed and out popped a tall agent with thick dark hair, dark eyes, and some kind of dark flesh above his lip. West caught the agent's glance in the mirror and, startled, flipped around.

'Marceau!' he cried, and gave a meagre point at the lip, 'you've got a caterpillar on your face!'

Agent Marceau Spencer, Level Nine Communications Operative, leaned his lanky self towards the mirror and examined the new moustache. He patted it and petted it. 'Looks all right, doesn't it?'

'No, it looks awful. You look so—so _smarmy_.' West straightened his forest-coloured tie, standard issue for all male agents of Level Five, as the NSA often went for a monochromatic wardrobe scheme with its agents. West felt an earnest pathos for Agent Spencer: Level Nines wore black: black on black on black. Except for the socks. Marceau wore the funkiest socks ever, and even West had a hard time keeping up with him. Today it appeared to be some kind of puke-green paisley, just visible between the cuff of black trousers and the same shiny loafer West wore. It put West's beige argyles to shame; he could almost feel his feet blush in embarrassment.

They headed out of the bathroom together, into the bleak, dead hallway of the fourth floor.

The area belonged to the building's administration department, a lot of low-level, part-time employees who pushed papers and copied files all day long. Communications agents, the wittiest and cleverest of them all, had long ago dubbed the fourth floor 'The Snore Floor'. For obvious reasons. It wasn't exactly party central like the first floor, the nest of computers where the Communications agents worked all hours, day and night, tracking everything within the atmosphere that moved.

'So what are you doing up here?' Spencer asked.

'Having a look around. Marcia won't let me back in the office,' West admitted. He could feel Marceau's confused stare. 'I was making her too nervous. Agent Rush is arriving today.'

'Ah, that's right,' Marceau said. They meandered without purpose to the elevators. 'Agent Rush. What's she like, do you know yet?'

'You mean you haven't looked up her file for yourself?'

He lifted his shoulders. 'I may have scanned it last night, but I didn't really _look_ at it. I've got better things to do.'

'You were playing _Empress Midori_ weren't you?'

Agent Spencer laughed to dismiss this as gainsay. But West was too smart, and they shared many common interests, video games being one.

'What level is your character up to now?' West asked excitedly. Marceau was better at RPG's than anyone in the building. Of course, that may be because no one was a bigger geek.

'Thirty-two, just last night!' Inside the elevator, after stating the floor to go to, Marceau folded his arms and set on West. 'So, I saw you were on there last night. You and your weak little elf wizard! Pah! I could've killed you and taken all your gold! I saw you had some on you.'

'I do! Five hundred! Tonight I'm going to buy myself the Golden Slippers of Air.' He rubbed his hands together in anticipated rapture. 'One step closer to riding the Captured Unicorn and getting into Castle City! Moo ha ha ha!'

The elevator doors open just as West laughed. He gulped in the last bit of breath and nearly choked himself. Bennett stood there, flanked by Director Stamper and Director Hattie. West nodded and wished them a good morning. It was still morning, wasn't it? Well, he wasn't about to sneak a peek at his watch to find out. But it was almost noon, according to the last time he looked at it, just before going into the bathroom. So it might almost be noon now. And, at any rate, time only moved one way.

No one spoke in the elevator. It was extremely uncomfortable. West coughed and tried releasing his tie a little; he felt strangled. The cold air conditioner smacked him in the face as soon as the doors parted. He stepped out behind Bennett and in front of Spencer. He felt short and clumsy around them. Even Agent Hattie wasn't much shorter than him. That's what he liked about Marcia, four inches shorter than him, and technically too short even to work in the NSA. He wondered how tall Agent Rush was. He wondered if Rush would be like having a second handler all over again, and not the euphoric kind of handler, either, like Agent Spencer was to his guys. But the Nazi-Hitler kind of handler, without the anti-Semitism—at least he hoped so. Suppose Agent Rush hated video games, or hated that he didn't wear socks that matched his uniform? Or his hair that never would be flat, ever, not even with a whole tube of pomade? What if she hated that he didn't shave every morning, on account of having too few whiskers to make it worthwhile?

There was too much to worry about.

He sighed as he walked, for the first time in a year realising how lucky he'd been to have a capable but fierce man like Agent Bennett as a handler, and a valuable, angelic Agent Lee as a partner. Suppose his luck ran out now, with the arrival of Agent Rush and the relocation of Agent Lee?

Well, tears would come, that's all there was to it. He'd have to bawl his eyes out. And spend the whole weekend playing video games.

Spencer was about to curve off into the Communications area, but he tapped West somewhere on the arm. West gave waning attention.

'LAN party,' Spencer pointed to the hazel-eyed kid as he walked away backwards, 'my house, three oh clock, Sunday. Be there or be square.' He made a square from his hands and disappeared around the corner.

Something in the movement lightened West's mood. Spencer was amply good at comedy. West could be theatrical when it suited him, but he was rarely ever thought of us 'funny'—unless it be an unintentional physical humour of the Three Stooges variety. He kept his head down and followed the suited trio. They were now talking to him, at least a little, and he listened and said 'Yes, sir' and 'Yes, ma'am,' where applicable. But he wasn't in the mood. He wanted to go to the cafeteria and get a cup of tea and a banana nut muffin, sit at the end of the table, across from Agent Marcia 'Marshmallow' Lee. Talk about cases and Zeta and Ro; the politics of the building and the gossip that inevitably comes up. He wanted to look into her face and see if she was happy, if this move away from him and Bennett would make her happy. 'You're such a good agent, Marshmallow,' he'd said to her yesterday, 'and you can be a better agent if you're away from Bennett.'

Behind the sadness of Marcia's departure lay other indistinct emotions West was trying to ignore: loneliness, inadequacy, fear. Marcia palliated his mental imperfections without really trying. How was he supposed to get along with another agent, someone he would subconsciously resent for taking Marshmallow's place? Marcia ought to be there, still, with Bennett and him. It was wholly unfair. If it hadn't been for the stupid enquiry four months ago, none of this would've happened. If it wasn't for Bennett's priggishness and occasional—very occasional—bending of cut-and-dry procedures, none of this would've happened. Lemak wouldn't have noticed a thing, and he certainly wouldn't have brought to the Panel in Washington the Act of Enquiry Into Task Team 425-CSF at the end of April. And West wouldn't have needed to sit in front of that Panel to answer questions about himself, Bennett, Lee, Zeta, et al., and swear to tell the whole truth, so help him God.

Indeed, so help us God.

_Adonai._

_Elohim._

_YHWH._

The entire list of Jewish prayers he'd known in childhood had vanished from memory, except for the beginning of them. That beginning ran through his head like a calm, lazy day, as he followed Bennett outside, and was told to get into the jeep.

All this change inflicted sadness. He wasn't even surprised when they crossed the street into Fort Carson and one of the main administration buildings. In the foyer was General Barrington, saddled by other high-ranked, commission officers West had never met before. He could tell their ranks by their insignias, learned through the years by osmosis rather than acute study. Army men, all of them. West wondered if Rush had been in the Army. But he'd seen her file, and it'd stated no such thing, no previous attachment to any of the four major military branches.

There was lots of hand-shaking and ample conversation. West was lost in the movements that came over the next thirty seconds, too busy trying to look properly sycophantic, as generals preferred from NSA employees. After all, they were in this together, whatever 'this' referred to; it altered every other week or more. 'God and Country' he supposed would do, as the flat motive of all . . .

Before West knew what move he'd made, he was taking the powerful, rough hand of a broad-shouldered woman, with wild black hair and penetrating peepers.

'Agent West,' she said, voice full of incredible control, 'I'm Agent Karen Rush. It's very nice to meet you. I've heard a lot about you.'

'Likewise,' was all he managed to say at first. He cleared his throat and stood at ease, an innate action brought on by the presence of the military. 'I've heard much about you as well, all of it praise. You came to us highly recommended, from Washington, right?'

'Yes, I've been there six years. My entire tenure with the NSA, actually.'

'Colorado is a bit different. And not just the altitude.'

'General Barrington and Director Stamper have already agreed to allow me to rest accordingly, so I may be given some time to acclimate to the different atmospheric conditions. As I understand it, Agent Lee will be a member of your team until Monday.'

'That's what I've heard as well.'

Rush looked behind him, around him, then back to him. He answered for her.

'She's not here, I'm afraid.' He blinked and said why. 'Truly, she wanted to be, more than anything, but was—forbidden. I think the directors thought it might be a little, you know, awkward.'

Rush was quiet for a moment, but West could see her brain moving from thought to thought. She was a force, no doubt about it. A very strong force, not quite a tornado, but something else—maybe a blizzard. Maybe one of the Titans. Or a plague. He'd work the analogy out later.

'I think we should be as frank and honest with each other as possible, Agent West.'

'A philosophy I welcome, Agent Rush.'

'So I suppose I should tell you that I already know why Agent Lee resigned her position and requested transfer.'

Although she hardly said it loud enough to reach the large ears of Agent Bennett, chatting with the directors and General Barrington, she said it with enough confidence that West wouldn't doubt her.

'There's no point in pussy-footing, not that I can see. I'm not here to take Agent Lee's place. I'm here to make my _own_ place. You do understand that, don't you?'

'I do.' He smiled, and didn't care if it looked false. Honestly, it didn't feel false. Rush's shrewd speech was a fine alteration from the normal hush-hush that went on among the three of them: himself, Bennett, Lee. 'The world can always be improved by a few less liars, Agent Rush.'

She agreed with him. 'Especially in the military.'

Director Stamper called them over. Stamper had his arm around West's shoulders. The sienna-haired kid with the crooked smile and arrogant temperament was one of his favourites in the large Colorado field base. 'Getting along well with her already, I see. That's excellent, Orrin.' He roughed up West's loose, untidy locks. 'Good boy.'

Someday, Director Stamper was going to mistake Orrin West for an obedient Golden Retriever. And the next time West heard 'Good boy', he would be fed a doggie biscuit and asked to heel. It didn't bother him, not exactly; he was glad someone in the Beyond Levels liked him.

The military personnel were left behind at Fort Carson. Rush and West rode in the back of the jeep, behind the directors, Agent Bennett the obligatory driver. Stamper commented on the heat, Hattie mentioned the wildfires, and West talked about the lack of rain during the monsoon. He grinned again at Agent Rush.

'Don't worry,' he said, misreading anxiety in her prim features, 'you'll get used to the fire and brimstone that goes on here in Colorado. Did you know some scholars think the Apocalypse is going to take place in America, in a city of religious prominence? Could be Colorado Springs.' He winked to indicate the jest, though he was half-serious, as seriously as he could take religion these days.

Rush bent her brows. 'I thought you were Jewish.' The blank gape he gave her required explanation. 'Your security code is in Hebrew. Your file also says you speak Hebrew, and I know you're from a predominately Jewish area of Chicago. It didn't take a genius—you know.'

'My file also says I'm six-foot-one. And after meeting me, you know what a fat fib that is.' He wanted to fight back a little, just a little, for all the self-conscious 'heart-in, mind-out' Diaspora in the military today.

But Karen Rush simpered at him, briefly, teasingly, then hopped out of the jeep.

West remained, beguiled by this new force that was to be by his side through thick and thin, fire and brimstone, come what may . . . The sharp pangs of sadness coiled through his heart again. None of this should've happened.

He was the last one inside. The others had meandered so far ahead that he backed off entirely, more to see if they would notice than wont of disobedience. When Director Stamper began giving Rush a tour, West took the elevator to the third floor. In twenty-six steps ahead, he was back in the office and sitting his lumbar against the front end of his desk. Marcia, reading glasses on the rim of her nose, read text on the computer screen. Her passivity grated his nerves. How could she be so calm, unemotional? Didn't they _mean_ anything to her anymore?

'She's here,' he started, pausing to rub his eye. 'I just met her.'

Marcia's regard was invitational. He stepped to the side of her chair, his palms to the arm rests, and leaned towards her. Not knowing what else to say or do, he kissed her cheek. Marcia tilted away uncomfortably.

'West,' she took off the red-rimmed glasses and stuck the left arm in her mouth, 'do you know what your next project is going to be?'

'Zeta,' he said, poised in front of the narrow window. 'And then probably more Zeta. Sometimes I wonder if it'll ever really end—and what'll become of us if that ending ever comes.' He angled to see her over his shoulder. 'Why?'

'Because I think I do know. Look at this.' White paper sheets extended from her hand as she met him. Marcia put her glasses on and scanned it a second time. He read one sheet, then the second, finally to the third. 'It's a list of data I've compiled through the morning. This could be very important.'

'The boss will be angry he didn't think of it first.' He gave the packet back and watched her return to the desk. Because he couldn't help it, he smiled a little, privately. Lee was dressed formally that day, in her skirt and jacket with heeled shoes, when she usually wore trousers and loafers. Good impressions were important that day. Lee gained respect by insight and talent, not by fashionable wardrobe selections. Maybe it couldn't hurt. Suddenly he wished he'd worn uniform-matching socks.

'Do you remember what happened when we saw Zeta three weeks ago?' He rolled out the desk chair and sat near Lee. He swivelled the seat. The hubris restored his wit and whimsy.

'Yes,' Lee nodded, 'I remember. I still don't understand what he was doing at Club Pierre.' Marcia's voice trailed away into endless thoughts.

West rubbed his hands together to nullify intense apprehension. He knew why Zeta had been at Club Pierre. Should he tell this to Marcia, now that she'd stumbled across the ever-increasing list of dead IU scientists? No, he'd better not. They might suppose he was smart—and he'd be forced to answer the appropriate consequences. If he mentioned that he saw Zeta, he'd have to tell Bennett the whole story, and Bennett did resent any of Zeta's motives that he hadn't discovered alone. West was on the task team because he had to be, because some director or general had insisted on it. Bennett's lot in life was to guide West, until the end came.

He thumbed through the list again. A name jumped out at him. 'Thornton Harris.'

'He is the newest victim. They found his body in the Donegal Building in downtown Washington. Half of him was out the front door, the other half inside.'

'Clearly the murderer wanted his body to be found.'

'Just like all the rest.' She grabbed the file again and zoomed back to the first page. Her pointer finger stopped under a victim, now nothing more than black text and an unknown statistic. 'Except for her, Dr Joan Florence Simms. Her body was left in a Gotham alley and not found for nearly three weeks.'

West's noise of repugnance exemplified his distaste for forensics. He was in the NSA, not the FBI. Computers were his fancy. If he wanted macabre in his life, he'd read Poe by candlelight during a thunderstorm.

She peeled off her glasses again and chewed the arm. Little teeth marks speckled the red plastic. 'She wasn't even _from_ Gotham. She was there for a convention.'

Comprehension dulled the colour of West's irises. His cheeks mottled. 'Not _that_ convention!'

Lee nodded and went to the computer, looking up dates she'd stored in the Zeta file. 'It is the same convention. We went to Gotham then, to find Zeta and Ro. They were there . . . at the same time as Dr Simms. Well,' glasses on, 'that's just too strange.'

'I don't know,' he tilted into the seat and rubbed his chin. 'If I've learned anything about Zeta—and I know you're astonished, Marshmallow, that I've actually learned something this past year—it's that he's a victim of circumstance more than anything. Wouldn't you agree? I mean, he's always in the wrong place at the wrong time. Many innocent people are convicted in a court of law for less.'

'So you don't think he's involved?'

'Wouldn't rule it out,' he said quickly, 'but I wouldn't be so eager to judge, either.' Suddenly, he grabbed her wrist, then latched to her fingers, and tugged her suggestively from the seat. 'Let's get out of here for a while, huh? I've been dreaming all morning of having a cup of tea and talking gossip, down in the cafeteria.'

'That's your dream?' she scoffed, putting her glasses in the front pocket of her black blazer.

'I'm a very simple man with very simple dreams. Don't make fun.'

'I wasn't.' She let him lead the way out the door, closing it behind him. 'Where is Agent Rush, anyway? I thought we were supposed to have a introductory meeting or some such thing.'

'The big kiss and cry? Oh, it'll happen later. Right now, Stamper's taking her on a whirlwind tour.'

Both were relieved to have the elevator alone. But Marcia widened her eyes in horror when West hit the red 'Stop' button at the control panel. The elevator jolted. Marcia braced herself with the handrail.

'What are you doing, West?'

'Sorry, but this really can't wait. I thought it could, and it—it can't. I want to ask you something.' He swiped a hand through the air. 'And don't blow any smoke up my rump, all right? I'm dead serious about this.'

Marcia nodded, prepared. This was an inevitable conversation. Perhaps, on some level, she'd feared being alone with him through the day, for this very reason. Now it was upon her, she felt dignity rise, a friendly sense of truthfulness. 'All right. Go ahead.'

They took up places across from one another, she leaning against one handrail, he the other. Their arms folded and they stared. Heat rose in Marcia's chest, fearing what this was all about. West could drag out anticipation unlike any man she'd known. It was horrible. If a technical operative's career wasn't for him, he'd be grand at interrogation for a Homeland Security office.

'You're leaving just two days after tomorrow,' he began. 'You're going to the sixth floor to dance with the thugs. God knows why,' he mumbled, 'that's not important.'

She gulped. At least West understood not to coerce her. He could've if he'd wanted, and she would've given in. But he knew better.

'All I really want to know is if this is the end.' He winced at her. 'Isn't that a magical word? End. End. End. End. . . .'

'The end of what?'

'Us,' he said, gesturing between them. 'Our relationship. Or, better still, our friendship. The bettering of ourselves by knowing one another. You're my—my mentor, Lee. You're irreplaceable. You can't honestly tell me that Bennett really cares whether or not I'll ever be a proficient agent. All he cares about is how much longer he has to put up with my so-called incompetence.'

'What about Agent Rush? She's older than either of us. Very experienced. I'm sure she'll answer any questions you may have.'

'But I don't ask questions,' he argued.

Marcia knew he was closer to admitting the point than she fathomed. There was something classic in their relationship, something symbiotic. They worked well together as a team. Their brains interlocked. Sometimes they said the same thing at precisely the same time and would successfully scare Bennett. He hated that they could think alike, two completely different people, one he respected, the other he tolerated. West and she—they didn't mind. It amused them. It made them remember their individual and collective purpose in this world.

'West, listen,' she held his shoulder and tilted him to her, 'you'll be all right. I know you will. And I'm always just four floors away—a short ride in the elevator—a speed dial on your mobile.'

'But you teach me, Marcia. I really learn from you. Not just textbook things. But other things, about me.' He slapped himself on the chest, indicating his whole person, inside and out. 'How am I going to learn that from anyone else, from a stranger like Agent Rush? She might be able to teach me how to track Zeta better than anyone else in Washington, but she's never—ever—going to teach me the humility I've learned from you!'

He slapped the button and the elevator slipped downward several more feet before stopping. The doors opened to reveal a crowd of grumpy, sour-faced agents who'd been queuing for the lift. West stormed ahead, once shouting 'What are _you_ looking at?' to poor Agent Nagel, merely minding her own business. Marcia was a little less imposing and a lot more kind, with her proper 'Excuse me, please' and words of that nature. She slipped through the colourful horde and to the next hallway. But it was too late. West had disappeared around another corner or into one of the doors.

'Hey, Lee.'

Lee rose her face to see Agent Spencer. 'Hey, Spence.'

'Look like you've just lost your best friend.'

'Yeah,' she smirked and tried to laugh at it. 'I feel like I have, too.' Resigned, she sighed to clear her mind and relax. Straightening her jacket across her hips, she met Spencer's inquisitive leer again, now with more confidence. 'Would you like to get a cup of tea with me, Spence?'

'Only if you tell me what's on your mind.'

'Don't think I could stop myself.'

They were already in each other's confidences by that time, brought on by the mysteries of the field office, the delicious gossip of five hundred government employees shoved together into one building over three hundred days a year. Marcia could talk to him easily, and he to her. They often shared tea and secrets. Last month, Agent Teague had confronted them and demanded to know how long they'd been dating. To which, as no surprise to either Marcia or Marceau, they looked at each other and burst into a laugh. Teague blushed and never brought it up again, and never had anyone since.

Marcia could appreciate any man who knew his teas the way Marceau Spencer did. She looked at him as they entered the cafeteria.

'Seriously, Marceau,' she snickered, 'reconsider the caterpillar. You look so—so _smarmy_.'

* * *

_Please read and review!_


	6. Frenemies

6) Frenemies

Date: Friday, 15 August 2042  
Original notes: Ro Rowen  
Compiled by: Zee Smith

Three weeks have gone by since we first heard of the death of an infiltration unit scientist. That was the untimely death of Irving R. Houston. Incidentally, the 'R' of his middle name stands for Renato. I looked it up on the net. Renato is Italian and means 'he shall be reborn'. Some how, I don't really think so, not this time. But Irving R. Houston lived a full kind of life. He was born in 1975 in Palo Alto, California, to the bourgeoisie parents, household, culture, equivalent to that time. The second-eldest of three siblings, the rest made of sisters: Maxine, Mary, and Monica. Maxine being the eldest of them all, still alive in—where else?—Marion, Mississippi (nee Houston but is now Monjoy, as per I would expect from such fans of alliteration). Mary and Monica remain in Palo Alto, content Californians with fat grandchildren bouncing on their arthritic knees. All siblings attended the funeral of their dearly departed brother. His life lives on in embellished family legend. In 1990, Irving R. Houston joined the ranks of geniuses employed at Boeing, and moved from St Louis, Missouri, to Seattle, Washington, finally to Colorado Springs in late 1998. He married wisely into the large and flamboyant Zeller clan, one of Colorado Spring's First Families of The West. (They settled here permanently in 1883.) Their distant relative is none other than Clarence 'Sooty' Zeller, of the Cellar Heist Gang. They ran thefts from Grand Junction to Durango, down into Santa Fe, out into San Francisco, all through the 1890's. Sooty Zeller was gunned down on a dusty dirt road in Plankton Mountain, Colorado, by a skinny little lawyer named Franklin McCreary, who'd never before held a Smith & Wesson, let alone ever shot another living thing. So it was that the life and death of Sooty Zeller fell out of fame and into shame, the shame into legend, and the family of his connexions cultivating fear rampantly wherever they trod. They say now that the dark, lightless eyes of Sooty Zeller, from whence his nickname was acquired, passed through the Zeller genes and can still be seen today in the youngest of the branch, for instance Demeter Houston, known by many as Pudding. For her eyes are dark as the sweet chocolate dairy dessert, with not a lace of froth in them, not a glimmer of starlight. And her skin is dark like a Native's, and her hair coarse and black like the mane of a wild palfrey. Though the youngest, with the death of her great uncle, Irving Houston, comes the most power of all her family. She is wife of the owner of Club Pierre, Mitchell St. Tillberry. Club Pierre itself is a very popular dinner spot near downtown Colorado Springs, frequented by military types and adored by all of that classic American musical genre, jazz, where it is played daily and nightly by local and touring musicians. Demeter Houston's cousin, Raleigh Houston, is an investor, but pays little attention to the finer details of the club. Demeter is its manager. She oversees the employees, lines up the acts, tests the food, gives the place its need to keep an eye on sharp details that so often are left undone at other eateries. She is the magic in the mayhem.

Demeter Pudding Houston St. Tillberry is the one woman to whom Zeta most wished to interview. What did she know of her great uncle's professional life? Did he have friends? If he was only semi-retired, what kind of part-time work did he do?

We went to Colorado Springs and to Club Pierre. Again. My stomach ached as though I'd eaten too much and my cramps were irritating my already irascible mood, but I went. Even though I can't be wholly objective to a town so rich in religion and military, I can look outside of myself and enjoy Colorado Springs on its own. It's only because I'm exposed to its rotten side that I dislike it. Zee, of course, doesn't have an opinion. He goes because he has to. And I go because I have to. We're bound to a quest.

Approaching the familiar club, with its white exterior and three arched windows lighting the front entryway, I begged him to reconsider. He convinced me otherwise, making the profound point that 'we do not know when we will be back in Colorado again'. I hoped not soon. Six lifetimes would be too soon.

It'd been my wish three weeks ago that we would leave the scientists to their own ways of gruesome mortality. I had no interest, still have no interest, in interfering with the ways and hows of a government that can't even understand the fallacious guilt of an autonomous machine. Why couldn't the NSA deal with the scientists? Lead them into protective custody. Take them away from the IU projects. Take them away from everything. Sit them on an island somewhere until the dangerous persons involved were discovered, cleaned out, broken, dismembered, whatever it took. Why did we have to be involved? I thought we wouldn't be.

Then Thornton Harris became number thirteen. And Zeta's dismay and alarm grew. My anxiety increased.

I had yet to write my report on Thornton Harris. But I'd seen a picture of him, alive, as he was, a pretty man who looked more like a movie star than a geeky scientist employed by the NSA. I liked his face. It was friendly and no less volatile than my own. I dreamed we were of even temperament. Provoked into anger easily, quenched just as easily, independent and aggressive, but on the whole completely uncertain of our own potential.

Indeed, I liked his face. With blue eyes and blond hair, it resembled mine.

The abrupt presence of Demeter Pudding in the entryway as Zee and I entered shook away all my thoughts of this case entirely. There she stood, five feet and eight inches, dressed as all professional women of this mid-century era: solid-coloured pantsuit, flamboyant jewellery, hair coiled upon her head and ringlets bouncing by her ears. She smiled as she saw us.

'Welcome to Club Pierre. How many in your party today?'

'We're not here to enjoy fine dining or take in a show,' Zee said. 'If you're truly Demeter Houston, I've come to speak to you.'

'Oh,' she was confused and affronted by the two of us.

We did appear difficult. Zee had lightened his wardrobe somewhat to go along with the dry heat of Colorado. In place of the violet-blue jacket was a tropical shirt with some beach theme printed upon, maybe sailing boats and palm trees but I never got close enough to determine. Gone were the charcoal trousers, that made me feel overheated just looking at him in 103-degree heat. But I liked the knee-length khaki shorts, if only to show off a nice set of calves; and I'd finally convinced him that black socks and sandals together were fine for men of eighty-eight, instead he put on work boots and white socks, thank heaven. He looked almost normal, except for that friendliness that smacked around everyone in this age of misery and suspicion. No one trusted anyone anymore. I certainly wasn't about to say I was immune to suspicion. I was one of its worst proprietors. Suspicious and rude and mysterious I may be, but a hypocrite I am not.

'Please,' began Zee, 'I know you don't have to tell us anything, and I'm not about to lie to you. But my companion and I have been looking for Dr Selig. Is it possible that your late uncle knew of his whereabouts?'

Demeter Pudding's face flattened. All the air and collagen seemed to seep right out of it. And then, poof, it was flat, and the spark of friendliness in her eyes deepened into a vibrant, fire-lit warning. 'Come with me.'

She stepped away, into the heart of the building. We followed. Things were familiar as we passed. To my right, above the partition of wavy glass, I saw the dinning area and stage, the little dance floor whereupon bad memories of Agent Bennett were born, never to leave me. I looked away, my heart not strong enough to live it again.

Into a little office room, with a plant in the window and a messy desk in one corner, two sitting chairs and a small hexagon fish tank, Demeter ushered us and closed the door behind her. I'd seen no one as we came. The place appeared wholly deserted save for Zee, me, and our hostess. She sat at the desk. We took the chairs. My eyes slipped to the fish tank. Gold fish were inside, small, scales catching the light as they glissaded, their dance in the water.

'I'm Zee Smith,' he said, 'and this is Ro Rowen. We've been looking for Dr Selig for the last nine months. We were sorry to hear of your uncle's passing. Please accept our condolences.'

'Thank you,' Demeter said. 'I see you're not with the US government.'

Mostly she eyed me as she said this, because I looked young, even younger than my sixteen years. I folded my arms across my chest. Always I felt its flatness made everyone mistake my age.

'I am a former government employee,' said Zeta, clearly and articulately, but without the common hint of doom that went along with this statement. 'I don't remember meeting your uncle. When did he retire?'

'Back in 2040,' answered Demeter.

'That was before my time.'

'I see. He'd been with them twenty-five years.'

I eyed her, knowing this already. I'd written my report on Irving Houston. My knowledge was vast: I could tell Demeter things about her ancestors that she wouldn't likely know, or care to know.

'And he worked mainly in machine development?'

'Yes, I believe so.' Demeter readjusted in the chair. 'But you have to understand that my uncle didn't tell a lot of us what he really did. He'd be gone for long periods of time and none of us would know where he'd got to. We knew he was contracted by the government even during his Boeing days. When he started working for the NSA outright, well, none of us know that anymore. But twenty-five years is the closest approximation I have. I heard him say it once to me, at his retirement party, but Lord knows if it's true.'

Now came my chance to play detective. 'Did your uncle ever mention any of the other scientists, maybe ones he worked with, maybe ones he knew from reputation?'

'I know he must've, but their names are gone from me now. I never had much of an interest. And, you have to admit, thinking that your uncle helped create government machinations is a bit outlandish, even twenty-five years ago, when I was younger and more gullible. But I guess that's my regret in all of this: I didn't allow myself the chance to be gullible, because maybe I would've listened better.'

She meant it, and I grieved. Often I did when it was hinted that the world's countries had turned cold and unfeeling towards one another, in the wake of war and near-wars, in the era of international crises and very little group effort from the whole of the human race. We couldn't all be as caring and resourceful as Zee. To our detriment, I supposed. And, maybe someday, to our final demise.

Zee sensed my discomfort. 'But you know who Dr Selig is. The look on your face when I mentioned his name, it gave you away.'

'That's no secret, Mr Smith.' She rummaged around atop a bookcase of papers. I saw envelopes, greeting cards, printed messages, photographs, flop to the floor as she dug efficiently for a single article. Once discovered, she checked its authenticity and handed it to Zee. I read it over his arm. It was a printed e-mail.

_Dear Demeter Houston St Tillberry,_

_So sorry to hear of your great uncle's passing yesterday afternoon. He was a good man and I enjoyed working with him. Regrettably, I am unable to attend his funeral. However, my sympathy belongs to you and your kin, and all those who knew Irving. May your grief pass quickly._

_Most sincerely,_

_Dr Eli B. Selig_

She had nothing else to offer us but this sympathetic note. It could be kept by us, at her insistence, and she asked neither of us questions about why we were looking for Selig. 'But you are convinced now that he's still out there,' she said. And I added, as we were leaving the parking lot, that Selig was also keeping an eye on those he'd known through the years.

It wasn't until gloaming came, swiftly as it does in the shadow of the mountains, that we packed ourselves in the vehicle and again set out for parts of America unknown.

We'd made it as far as Kansas before turning around and heading back to Colorado Springs the first time. This second time we finally made it to the north, Montana, by the following morning. I'd wanted to go somewhere cool and far away from everyone. And Zee asked me if I were feverish, for this didn't sound like me in the least. But I wanted to be somewhere with a computer to flesh out the character of Thornton Harris, to have it in our minds who this man had been, and what he might've been working on that made him the thirteenth to die.

As with all the other bodies, except one, he'd been left out in the open for easy discovery. In the foyer of his office building, where a young scientist found him at five-thirty the following morning. 'Do scientists always keep strange hours?' I asked Zee. He said they were inspired to work when they least expected it, 'like artists and writers, working at all hours, always thinking of their work, never living outside it.' To me, it sounded horrible, mostly because I could sympathise. Here was I, working along side a machine that truly didn't need to sleep, all hours of the morning aware of being pinned in and trapped by agents in dark suits with high authority and questionable morals, at least in the shape of Agent Bennett.

We were at a 24-hour Ground Wire in downtown Bozeman. Montana I'd been to before, but farther north, never to Bozeman. So far I liked it. As far as Ground Wires went, it had decent lattes, better than some I'd tasted at other Ground Wires, and fresher biscotti. Biscotti was an oddity to Zee. 'I don't understand why you would pay money for bread harder than some minerals.' Well, I didn't understand his obsession with finding who was responsible for killing all these scientists, but did I complain?

I was busy looking up Thornton Harris on the internet when Zee plunked a kiss on top of my head. 'I'm going out,' he said. 'There's some other investigating I want to do.' I'd ceased asking what it was he wanted to do some two weeks previous. If he wanted me to know, he'd tell me. If he wanted me to come along, he'd tell me. I assumed it was dangerous and I would disapprove, which is why he left in that cyclonic air of mystery I so despised.

Ground Wires bored him after a while. Especially if I was lost in the internet, with that 'vacant, listless look of alackaday in your eyes', he once quipped, the most irritated I'd heard him in almost eleven months of constant company. But he was gone, and I was left on my own, to browse and write as I chose.

The life of Thornton Harris was about as opposite as one could get from Irving Houston. Born at 1:31 a.m. at Mercy Hospital in Schenectady, New York, he was raised by nannies upon fields of gold and fed with spoons of silver. Everything about him screamed silver platter. The house he'd been raised in as a child was straight out of Newport, Rhode Island, in that kind of class and culture, a New York castle built by his old-money family 215 years ago. Mostly the internet buzzed with tales of the house's many hauntings, from a little girl spirit who is seen in the trees on crisp autumn days to a foul, ferocious beast who is said to prowl on foggy, wintry nights the grounds, looking for his dead master, the first Thornton Harris, born 1843. The first Thornton Harris earned his money in newspapers, steam engines, and railroads; then bought up the waterworks and the steel plants surrounding Schenectady, so that the Harris's, by 1900, were in possession of 6.1 million dollars, a phenomenal sum of the time. Inevitable bad luck ran in the family, and not just the constant ghost stories and family legends. Opal Harris Lombard, granddaughter to the first Thornton Harris, travelled with her husband, a little man named Emil Lombard, on the ill-fated Titanic and were not among the survivors. Another aunt, Eustace Harris Bearacres, was aboard a railroad when it derailed in eastern Washington state. But the bad luck that waylaid several generations seemed to lessen significantly after the first World War, leaving many Harrises to wallow in longevity and prosperity. The first to submit unwillingly again to the ill fates of the Harrises was the modern Thornton Harris's mother, Dorthea Van Winkle Harris, socialite, feminist, and philanthropist. She died in the crash of a private plane, a Follette 17 II, along with four of her best friends, Walter and Marissa Quincy, Cheryl Charlotte Pearson, and Jerome Montgomery Wade.

Naturally, the airplane, the Follette 17 II, I investigated, curious and knowing so little about private airplanes. The Follette, I discovered, was built as a training aircraft by the French during the early years of the Common War, what I knew as 'the war between the commonwealths'. A World War, almost, and it would've been if America had charged ahead with its often ferocious 'act now, think later' ideals. But America went pacifist at war's quiet outbreak in 2030, too close to its capitalism to assist any country with ties to socialism, and not interested in bogging its 310 million citizens with the economic burdens and philosophical hardships of another multi-political conflict. Most history books overlooked the fact that several Americans went on to the war, regardless of undeclared belligerence. Some never came back because they liked the countries so well, their ancestral homeland off American soil; others stayed to be buried beneath alabaster crosses in French, Irish, English soil, not to fight another day. This information led me to Common War websites, mostly run by the Irish government. And it took a little digging, but thankfully no e-mails I'd have to wait for replies, but I found S. Thomas Harris listed among casualties at the Battle of Larne, 2033; and an S.E. Harris Harcourt, injured in Wales. S.E. Harris Harcourt was still alive, living in Ireland, and working for something called 'Pewee'. I threw all of this into the back of my brain and pressed forward with present findings.

Thornton Harris, however, remained a great mystery. He was nowhere exceptionally interesting on the internet. I found his name on a list of Distinguished Guests at a science convention earlier that year. I spent five minutes reading about the convention's success before it hit me this was the same convention Zee and I had gone to Gotham for back in March. Then I knew I was onto something.

By the time Zee returned, I only had one thing to say to him.

'Well,' I finished off the latte, 'I found out there must be a reason for the killer's order, why he kills one but not the other.'

'How talented you are, Ro. What have you found?'

'I discovered that Thornton Harris was at the same convention Dr Simms went to. The one in Gotham.' I stared at him. 'The one we were supposed to go to.'

He waited patiently, scanning me. I wondered if he thought we were becoming quite the detectives. But I continued, arms stretched over my head. It was a good kind of tired.

'Simms died an hour after leaving the convention. Obviously the killer knew Harris was there, but why didn't he just kill both of them at once? Because he didn't want to. There's some reason he killed Simms then, and I want to find out what it is.'

We were alone in the Ground Wire, except for the backroom manager, the only other human in the building, and the robot server at the counter. I grew increasingly aware of the late hour, a few minutes after three in the morning. My lids were heavy and my eyes burned. Zee protested the continuation of this conversation, but I wouldn't hear of it.

'Zee,' I paused, leaning forward, grabbing his wrist in sheer urgency, 'we need to find out what we're going to do.'

He said nothing for a distended moment. I had to urge out of him his own findings, from the independent investigation that'd taken him hours to complete. The data cord slipped from his wrist and into the computer at our station. A list appeared, but Zee scanned through it too fast that I couldn't read it. Finally, he stopped, back at the first listing, and I saw it was made up of columns: location, date, time, phone number, and a second location of the outgoing call. Zee had tracked down the last phone calls of Thornton Harris's mobile. He'd always claimed he could do this, but I'd never actually seen it. And where he'd done it, I begged myself not to imagine. I avoided asking.

'Busy guy,' I commented on the enormous number of calls from the last day he was alive. 'Did you find anything useful? I found hardly anything on him professionally. A lot about his family, but not much about him.'

The screen reflected in Zee's eyes. Thoughts made him impassive, and monotone when he spoke. 'I saw no connection to any of the dead scientists. Indeed, he hardly speaks with anyone outside Washington.'

I saw other cities on the list, besides District of Columbia, but figured they were Washington suburbs. On this point I didn't argue; Zee's knowledge of geography greatly outshone mine. 'So, what do we do, Zee? What do we do?'

The data cord snapped back, disappearing beneath his skin, into his wrist. He pulled his hands into his lap and sat there, thinking, a long while. I yawned again and set my head to my palm, my elbow to the station counter. A thousand lattes couldn't help me now.

'We have three options,' he finally said. 'And feel free to voice a fourth, Ro.'

I gestured to hear these options, eyes closed, but Zee knew I was still awake.

'We can talk to the last person to speak to Thornton Harris, Billie Jenera.'

'The woman who was on the phone with him when he died?'

He nodded.

I made a disgusted face. 'That's gruesome. Can't you just, you know, hack into the police files and read her statement? We could glean some info that way, I'll bet. Better than going to Illinois and harassing the poor woman.'

'I'll do it. I should be able to access the police file from here. But it'll take some time.'

'What?' I smirked. 'Forty minutes, tops? You're a lot faster than you think. Well, you get on that, and I'm going over to the couch to catch some Z's, uh, Zee.' As I rose, ready to walk by him, he grabbed my hand and held me back. I yawned again. 'Huh?'

'We may have to leave quickly if I do this. You do understand that.'

'I understand that.' I pried the hand off. 'Tell ya what. I'll go out back and check to make sure the car's still there. Then I'll catch up on my sleep. Sound fair?'

Though he agreed, I think it was with some reluctance. Fortunately, the car was where we'd left it. The parking lot was dark, no cars on the nearest road, and the light at the intersection blinked a caution yellow. I went back to the café proper and dropped to the couch. Before closing my eyes, I saw Zee at the computer, diligent in his work.

It seemed like only five minutes went by before he was shaking me at the shoulder, gently but hurriedly. I rose and caught daylight in the room. Zee stood over me. The gloom in his expression rent me somewhere near heart and sternum. He sat down beside me while I rubbed sleep from my eyes. A mug of espresso and foam was in front of me, Zee indicating it with a bland point, and I cupped it into my hands and sipped.

'So, what'd you find out? And how long was I sleeping?'

'It's only a little after six-thirty.'

'Why's it so bright outside?'

'We're up north, Ro.'

It took me almost an embarrassingly long time to realise what he meant. Then it dawned on me, nearly literally. 'Ah, right, not as much darkness in the summer here as farther south. Forgot about that.' Then I remembered that it wasn't dark in Bozeman, entirely dark, until about eleven. 'Anyway, go on, what'd you find? Stop stalling.'

But he stalled once more, touching the end of his nose while looking at me. I wiped off the end of my own nose, his meaning clear. Froth came off and I smeared my hand clean on my jeans. 'Now, talk!'

He wouldn't meet my gaze as he spoke, favouring the comings and goings of morning patrons and the robot server instead. As long as he said what was in his mind, I didn't care what he stared at.

'The scientists have been methodically dying off since the start of the Infiltration Unit programmes three years ago. Billie Jenera had very little to say to the local police department, but you can imagine it didn't take them long to lose their jurisdiction, in favour of the Military Police. She told them how she'd been keeping close watch on the scientists' deaths. From what I understood of the report, filed two days after Harris's death, the Military Police aren't very interested in Billie Jenera's vague notions of a few government-employed scientists. They're not going to do anything about it, alas. They wanted to know if she had any details on Harris's killer—of course she doesn't. And as far as they're concerned, there is no correlation between his death and the deaths of the other scientists. The only significant piece of information I procured was Billie Jenera mentioning she'd spoken with Eric Valos, and it was he that told her of Irving Houston's death.'

'Do you know who Valos is?'

'He's Major Eric Valos, a commissioned Army officer.'

'What's his tie to the Infiltration Units?'

'He's one of the head members of the Infiltration Unit Oversee Committee. A military guy who comes in, with the other Oversee Committee members, and makes sure the NSA is in compliance with their military contracts.'

'Oh,' I drew away, brow bent in the middle, 'I bet he hates your guts, wires and all.'

'He's not one of my biggest fans, no.' He rapped his fingers on his knees. 'About as big a fan as Agent Bennett. I don't know what he has to do with the work of Billie Jenera, but she did admit to working for the government early in her career.'

'Another NSA employee?'

'No. She worked for the CIA. I'm guessing M-FIG—multi-facet intelligence gathering—but she wasn't able to divulge that to the police department, obviously. I don't know what Valos must think of all this.'

'But you think he knows what's going on?'

'He must. I remember Valos. He would sometimes be at certain subrosa stations, where I would go after an infiltration, but he was most often at the main station outside Washington, in Seabrook.'

'Should you be telling me these things?' I mumbled, appropriately he ignored me.

'Valos isn't evil, and I can't believe he's propagating these deaths, but I know he's aware of it.'

'So what do we do?' I should've known better than to sip the latte while he answered.

'We need to go back to Colorado. I want to talk to Agent Lee.'

I sputtered into the latte and quickly set it down. Unable to scream how crazy I thought the idea, all I had to do was gape at him to mutely say my opinion. He wasn't finished yet.

'Something else I feel should be done first. I cannot go to Agent Lee with empty hands.'

Leaning into the couch, my stomach not handling excitement mixed with latte, I grabbed a pillow and waited for Zee. I was through provoking it out of him. What could he possibly need? And why Agent Lee? I hoped he'd answer in time.

Right then, in the middle of the café, he reached into his hologram and pulled out a small, rectangular object, slim and reflective, with red detail. I didn't recognise it at first, too fearful someone may have seen Zee's odd movement. I glanced at the patrons, but all of them were busily reading the menu or talking on mobiles. I looked back at Zee, just in time to see him squeeze the sides of the object, and in a slick '_shnick'_ it elongated. Then I knew what it was: the communication device Batman had given me on our last Gotham visit.

He wiggled it back and forth. 'Do you know how to work this?'

'Push the button,' I said in a hissing whisper. 'But I really don't think it'll work all the way out here. Gotham's two thousand miles away, Zee!'

Promptly ignoring my logic, he pushed the button in the communicator's centre. It flashed red and orange. Zee put it to his ear.

'No, not like that,' I said, then fixed it for him. 'Like this. Like a walkie-talkie, not like a mobile.'

'Right, thank you.'

The end of the throw pillow I picked at nervously. Zee leered my way, and I shrugged. Clearly nothing was happening.

'Maybe he has voicemail,' I joked. Unable to stand it anymore, I tilted my head to Zee's so I could hear as well. The communicator seemed to be clicking. It wasn't ringing like a phone, necessarily, but the clicking almost sounded like some kind of dial system. On the third series of clicks, it stopped, and a clear voice came through.

'Yes?'

I covered my mouth to keep from squealing in excitement. It was a man's voice that answered, but I couldn't tell if it was Batman's. Zee was, naturally, more calm—and, as usual, prepared for anything.

'This is Infiltration Unit Zeta. I need some information.'

'I'll see what I can do. What is it, Zeta?'

'A scientist died there when we were in Gotham last March.'

'The name?'

'Dr Jean Florence Simms.'

'What did you need on her?'

'The autopsy and police report.'

The background ambient noise seemed like an echo, and I thought I heard water, but there was definitely a dog bark. Just one. A very big dog.

Batman, or whoever it was, came back to the line. 'Go back to the computer. Log on to IP 4.4.53.108, port 5600, directory A. You can download your file there. Is that all?'

'Yes. Thank you.'

'Now what's this about, Zeta?'

'I don't know yet. I'm going to give the communicator back to Ro. If something happens to me, she'll call you. You'll take care of her, won't you?'

'That's why I gave it to her. Good luck.'

The line went dead. Zee squeezed the sides of the communicator, and it shrunk to its original size. In his flattened palm, I took it from him.

'If something happens to you?' I repeated. 'What's going to happen?'

'We're going back to Colorado. It's better if we have things accounted for.'

'Things? I'm a _thing_? Zee!'

'We'll get in touch with Bucky, too, if we can.' He headed towards another computer station, but before he could use it, we had to pay again. The snippy robot reminded us of this. Once paying the cost, Zee quickly downloaded what Batman had uploaded for him. He wouldn't tell me what the file contained until we returned to the car, driving south. After hearing this oration of detail, I thought it was better if he keep all future autopsy reports to himself.


	7. Commandeer

7) Commandeer

On Saturday evening, few employees were at the NSA. One that was, Director Nicklas Culpeper, sat at his wide desk on the first floor. He tapped the Scroll Down button on the keyboard rhythmically. His head rested in the crook of his arm. The youngest director currently employed by the NSA, he was only thirty-four, perhaps got the job because he had no outside life, no wife, kids, family. His wife, kids, and family were the NSA. If he wasn't there on a Saturday night, he had no idea what he'd be doing. Like the majority of employees, Culpeper had grown so used to this routine that he never questioned it. This work was how he existed.

Except the scrolling through case files, checking progress of his 152 agents and their open cases, that got a little humdrum, ho-hum after a while. How long had he been staring at the screen? Long enough for his fifth cup of coffee in an hour to cool off.

A light chime sounded through the monitor speakers. He hit the Escape key, then the spacebar to answer the call. The stats showed up first: duration of call, where the call originated, details on the caller. But it was only Agent Spencer. He'd already shaved off the moustache, now back to his more recognisable face.

'Hey, Nick,' Spencer never greeted those younger than him in respectable titles, let alone Nicklas Culpeper, whom he'd known for years, 'I think you'd better come down here. General Logsdon just gave us something.'

'On my way.' Culpeper tapped the spacebar again, terminating the call. He stood, involuntarily stretched, then grabbed his uniform jacket off the back of the chair. He swung into it as he left the office.

The elevator ride seemed to take forever. It landed in the central atrium, just at the north point of the communications centre. Its high ceiling, stretching all the way to the bottom of the fourth floor, had gone to dim, introrse lighting hours ago, but several of the computer screens remained active, glowing in eerie blues and greens across the faux marble floor. The large screens overhead were on, bigger than most cinema screens, and on it was the NSA Department of Defence Logo, 3-D animated, with the eagle on the insignia rustling its feathers restlessly every few seconds, and squeezing the arrows and sheaves in its talons. Not far under this point, some twenty yards from the screen, fifteen yards below, huddled a group of High Level agents: Spencer, Koumoutsos, Culley; and all the directors: himself, Hattie (technical operatives), Goubeaux (field operatives), and Director Stamper (director of all personnel, Colorado only). Nick took his place among them. He seemed to be the last one to arrive.

Spencer smoothed back his hair, nervous, face pasty white and sweat on his brow. He looked like a victim of food poisoning. Counting heads, satisfied at the gathered ranks, he took to his seat in front of his beloved computer.

'I want you guys to watch the big screen, all right? Washington's just sent us a little movie.'

The eagle on the insignia threw out a call, flew right at them, then vanished in a rustle of leaves and sheaves. The Defence Department's logo slipped apart in the middle, like a cut ribbon, and fell away.

'The video's a little rough after encryption,' Spencer said, adjusting volume, 'but I tried to clean it up as best I could.'

Rough it might be, or at least grainy, the low-quality film of surveillance video. But it had colour, some colour. Yet wherever it was filmed was a dark place, with blue and red lighting. Several faces were drawn apart from the surroundings. Suddenly, all witnessing the video knew they were watching from inside a submarine.

'That's a stealth submarine,' Koumoutsos said, crossing his arms. 'One of ours.' His voice trailed off as sound came through.

The voices of the sailors sounded thin and eerie. Words were difficult to distinguish at first, but as the sailors' agitation increased, so did their speaking volume. It soon became clear that things were not well on the submarine. They spoke of being followed. They couldn't make radio contact with the pursuer. The commander had his staff checking their position to make sure they were in 'our waters', and Spencer added commentary that they were. The commander yelled for them to brace, but an impact came. The lights flickered. Some returned to their stations. Others fell around and couldn't get their balance back. And others just fell. A second blast came, closer to the bridge, and sparks flew from equipment in the far corner, almost off screen. There came a dreadful, thick silence. Then, abruptly, a pounding, a thumping, and all the lights went out. The video stopped.

The NSA logo appeared again, the eagle soaring back into its place. Culpeper looked blankly at the others. What had they just seen? Naturally, their stares wandered back to Agent Spencer, but he kept quiet. Some forgot that Spencer wasn't the Communications Director; he just acted like it. No one did understand why he'd turned down the Communications Director position last year, allowing Nick Culpeper to have it instead. Spencer gestured limply to Director Goubeaux, who'd brought the video to everyone's attention by General Logsdon's orders.

Goubeaux was a man in his early sixties, with very little hair and a belly just beginning to protrude at the waist. He stepped in front of them, eyes keen, authority placidly present. 'Someone has commandeered a U.S. Naval submarine off the coast of Alaska this morning. The video was fed into Elmendorf. It's what we just saw.'

'Two weeks ago,' Spencer picked up, 'Homeland Security and the NRO picked up a few guys in Gotham for some e-mails they'd sent about potentially stealing a U.S. naval war-ready ship.'

'What terrorist faction are they associates of?' queried Agent Culley.

Spencer shrugged against Culley's constant seriousness. 'None, so they claim. Hell, they're Americans. Gotham born and raised. Still, they're being held at an undisclosed location until we can figure out who just stole a stealth submarine straight out of our very own ocean.'

'Someone very powerful,' murmured Hattie, talking to herself mostly.

'Powerful enough,' Culpeper said, 'to have the means of executing a commandeer so successfully. Do we know what kinds of tools they used to board her?'

'Negative,' Goubeaux said. 'Even though we're trying to keep this as hushed as possible, we're sending a diving team of Seals out to the site now, but I don't think they'll find anything useful. As for what we have on radar, the nearest vessel of significant size was a hundred and twenty-six kilometres to the south-south-west.'

'What kind of vessel?' asked Hattie.

'A cargo ship.'

'Country of origin?'

It pained Goubeaux to say it. 'Ours. On her way back from a shipment pickup in China. We've already checked her out. She's clean.' He sighed heartily and paced between the computer rows, hands wrapped behind his back. 'If, somehow, someone managed to sneak aboard the cargo ship, it does not explain how he was able to travel such a long distance in such a short amount of time.'

Spencer swivelled his chair, clicking the top of his favourite pen. 'Unless they already have a stealth boat—capable of undersea travel. They'd have to go underwater to board the submarine.' The pen dropped to the counter, and he pursed his lips in dismay for a moment. 'But, I don't know, all this conjecture isn't going to get us anywhere. We're better off discussing it when the diving team returns with their report.'

'I concur with Spencer,' Goubeaux said. He scanned their solemn, agent-like faces again. 'Those of you present are not to speak a word of this to those who are not currently in attendance—and that's about four hundred and ninety-four who are not to know. No one else outside of this group is to know about this. The six of you are here because you can be counted on and trusted, and because all of you have association privileges with the Navy. It may be that over the next couple of days to the next few weeks we will be visited by Navy personnel to combine efforts. We wish to solve this problem as quickly and efficiently as possible. You will be called upon as you are needed, and none of you are to leave Colorado Springs until further notice. Have a good night. You're dismissed.'

No one left right away, or made moves to leave immediately. The only ones who departed were Hattie, Stamper, and Goubeaux, both needing to make calls to their immediate directors about the now adjourned meeting. The other agents slacked around, unsure what to do with themselves, feeling tight in the stomach and a little in shock.

'My dad's a Navy man,' Culley said in a voice just above a whisper. 'I was in the Navy, too, for a while. But, I mean, I only made it to PO-2C. Got too good. Came to the NSA instead. But, man,' he fell limply into a nearby chair, 'I've never heard of this happening before! Someone just steals a naval submarine, a stealth one at that, right out of the water. It's unbelievable.'

They went quiet again.

'The directors didn't mention it,' Spencer said, squinty eyes darting to the company, 'but all those on board are gone too.'

'Oh,' murmured Koumoutsos, 'I just thought they got gunned down or something. You mean, they kidnapped the crew, too?'

Spencer nodded.

'Jeez,' Culpeper uttered. 'That's hardcore.'

'We're hoping they turn up somewhere, unharmed,' added Spencer. 'Speculation is that they needed the crew to guide the craft to some specific point, and then they'll be released.'

'Doesn't seem likely,' Culley said. He crossed his arms over his abdomen. 'I feel sick.'

'You'd think we'd just be able to find the thing,' Culpeper said. 'My God, how do you just lose a submarine?'

'Happens all the time,' Koumoutsos said. 'We just hardly ever hear about it. You know, the black market for terrorists, it's very popular. And not just terrorists, either. There's pirates, too.'

'And don't forget all the other crazy people in the world,' said Culley. He looked at Spencer. 'Are we trying to find it?'

'I assume so.' He blinked and shifted to sit more upright. 'But they didn't tell me yes or no on that one. To be honest, I can't quite see the US government letting go of a multi-million dollar vessel just because it might've fallen into the hands of terrorists—or pirates—crazy people in general.' He smiled a little to lessen their stress. Suddenly he stood, stretched, making great show of it. 'Who's up for drinks? Club Pierre's got a fine set going tonight.'

'I'll go,' Culley said, rising.

'I'll go, too,' said Koumoutsos.

Culpeper rose with them. 'Well, I'm in. Only if you sing something, Marceau.'

'I'd love to,' Spencer responded, leading the way out of the communications centre and towards the parking garage exit. 'But I don't think they have open mic on Saturdays. But I could call West. He's still sore at me for not logging on tonight for a good battle in the world of _Empress Midori_. Figure he's bored enough. If the two of us played a small set, Pudding might let us on stage. You never know.'

'Stranger things have happened,' Koumoutsos insisted.

'Indeed,' Culley nodded, 'very strange things.'

'You know what I'd love to have tonight?' Koumoutsos asked no one in particular. 'A vodka martini.'

'Shaken or stirred?' This from Spencer.

'Oh, stirred, definitely. None of that watered-down James Bond crap for me.'

The four of them managed laughter, and their spirits slowly lifted as they made their way to Club Pierre.


	8. Hope

8) Hope

Bucky had a sore spot on the end of his tongue. He tried ignoring it, but it magically found its way between his teeth, where he picked and picked and picked at it. With a set of knuckles, his hand tight on the strap of his travelling bag, he tapped the door release panel. His fingertips were scanned, and security waned. Two steps in, he dropped the bag, turned around, and dragged in the second load of luggage waiting in the hallway. One of the dorms near his opened. Reid Schweiterman and his narrow eyes were between door and jamb.

'Dude,' Schweiterman mumbled, 'it's twelve in the morning. Why you up?'

'Go back to sleep, Schweiterman,' commanded Bucky. He threw the last of his luggage into the bedroom.

More awake, Schweiterman stumbled to Bucky and analysed the facts: luggage, Bucky's weary demeanour, the late hour. 'You're just getting back, huh? Long travelling day?'

'Yeah.' He gently pushed Schweiterman towards his own room. 'Go away before you attract the dorm master's attention—or I regret coming back at all.' Bucky thought his persuasiveness worked. He sighed and turned away.

'How was Mexico?'

Bucky halted and froze. 'Schweiterman!'

'Yeah,' said another sleepy voice, 'how _was_ Mexico?'

On his heel, Bucky pivoted. Three more dorms were open, and three additional faces leered: Carlyle, Marsters, and Danes. Bucky tensed his shoulders to keep from shuddering. In one bold step ahead, he was in his room.

'I'm going to bed. Night, all.'

He slammed the panel button and the door whipped shut right in front of his nose. The sight of luggage taking over the majority of his dorm dismayed. The worst part of leaving Oceanside and Sorben for any period of time was coming back and having to unpack. At least Margie had let him do some laundry before leaving. 'No sense you going home with dirty laundry when you don't have to, Grandson. . . .'

He hugged himself. Already he missed Margie.

The luggage he managed to shove to one side of the room, in front of the bookshelf. It would be out of the way there, until he found the motivation to sort through his belongings, or needed a clean t-shirt. Standing in the centre of his room, the surroundings disappointingly surveyed, he picked his lip and felt lost.

'Well, I'm back.' He sighed again. 'Now what?'

The return would be hard, he'd known that. Monday he'd have to sit through yet another conference with the deans, his counsellor, and any other Sorben suit who happened to be interested. They just loved getting together to talk about him like he wasn't in the room. This was becoming tiresome and stressful. While he managed to get his school work done on time, the deans cited his lacking social contact with the other Sorben students—not to mention the fact that he caused trouble no matter what he did, with or without trying. But he pointedly reminded the deans that it was their own hiring of Dr Tannor that brought media scrutiny. They kindly set this little factoid aside. Matters and interaction at Sorben grew ever uncomfortable for Bucky. One of these days they were going to kick him out, or he was going to leave, or some yet unforeseen event would shake things up. It would happen, he just didn't know how—but he was waiting for it.

Stretched on the bed, he pulled the pillow over his head and closed his eyes. For a moment he thought he'd dozed off, startled awake by a soft thump against his door. The pillow fell from his head. He scanned the door critically. The low watt lamp by his computer was still on. Suppose the dorm master saw the glow under the door? Lights were supposed to be off at midnight.

He zoomed out of bed and shut off the light. Maybe that would take care of the problem. Tense, he waited.

The soft thump came again.

His forearms tingled in anticipation and fear. The dorm master it wasn't.

No other choice presented itself but to open the door and find out who it was. He grabbed the only weapon he had, a bronze statue of the Holy Mother, and slipped to the side of the frame. Armed and ready, his fingers slid over the opening panel. The door whizzed aside. The first thing he saw in the faint light was a glimmer of pale steel: the barrel of a hydraulic gun. Using the base of the statue, he swiped at the barrel. It fell and thumped to the carpet. Bucky kicked it out of the way. It vanished under his bed. He held the statue to the chin of his would-be assailant. From the dim greenish light in the hallway, he could perceive only an outline. It was enough for him. He lowered his arm and pulled the assailant inside and shut the door.

'Don't move,' he said.

Making his way across the room, in four cautious but hurried steps, he found his computer and brought the monitor to life. Pastel blue illuminated the room. He could see the assailant clearly now.

'I thought so.'

He dropped Good Mother Mary back to her spot and patted her blessed head. For the first time ever, he was glad Margie had given him the statue. He'd never asked so much of Mary before. Nice to know she was as tough a broad as he'd always suspected.

Too bad she couldn't do more with the sudden appearance of Esperanza Ortenegerra. That would have to be his department.

'Sit.'

She didn't move.

'I wasn't making a suggestion. Sit.'

Now she sat, fidgeting, on the edge of his bed. Though tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks, Bucky wasn't near feeling sorry for her. She'd come to his room armed with a hydraulic. Why?

'Well,' he began, 'what have you got to say for yourself?' He let her take the appropriate time to calm down before answering.

She met his gaze. 'I want your help.'

'Why me?'

'Everyone knows you're a genius.'

He shrugged at this, modest. 'So are lots of other people.'

'But you're different,' she began. Searching for the right words, she rubbed her nose and eyes. 'There's something nice about you. People, they don't know this, don't see it in you right away, but they come across it, maybe, if they look hard enough.'

After this dramatic précis of his character, he kindly tossed her a box of tissues. They fell at her feet and were immediately put to use.

'So you think I'm some kind of philanthropist?' Rubbing his chin, he tried to discern the path of her mind. When that didn't work, he asked more questions. 'Is this about your father?'

She was blowing her nose but nodded the affirmative.

Now they were getting somewhere. Bucky grabbed his office chair and sat backwards. He wheeled nearer Esperanza, but not too close.

'I know your father was a scientist,' he said. 'I know he came up here to work for the US government back in 2039. He was one of the few men who had brains enough to come up with a balance and gravity compensation software expansion program that rivalled everything available in the world at the time.'

Her head bowed and disappeared behind a curtain of dark, tangled hair. Bucky continued.

'I'm guessing you knew your father was important, but you probably didn't know he was working for the National Security Agency.'

She slipped him a glimpse. The light from the monitor caught her tears and shined.

Bucky made a gesture of impartiality. 'Then again, maybe you did know.' The spare moment came when he could accurately weigh what he was seeing. Her mood. Why she was there. The risks she'd taken. This led to one thing.

He pointed to her. 'You know something . . . Something about your father's death that no one else knows. What do you know?'

Sniffling, she pulled a small object out of the pocket of her black jacket. Fist extended towards him, Bucky opened his palm and she dropped in the object. He brought it to his eyes for inspection.

'A three-eighty, huh?'

He'd never held a bullet before, but he was aware of its calibre. Esperanza didn't question why.

'Where'd you find it?' He let her take time answering. A part of him pitied her. And another part of him respected her daring attempt to track him down. It flattered his ego immensely.

'I found the bullet,' said Esperanza, tired and sad. She'd stopped crying. She never did cry for very long, not anymore, after her father's elaborate funeral. 'I found the bullet outside the office window at our home the day before we buried him. I held to it. I don't know why. Just that I thought—it's suspicious.'

The story filtered through his mind. He categorised what he could. He took apart what she'd said and found pieces missing.

'There's a bit more, right? I mean, that's not the only reason you snuck onto campus in the middle of the night. So—what else?'

More confident, Esperanza pulled her hair into a ponytail, out of her face, then slumped over her knees, hands together. She and Bucky watched each other. Only the greatest desperation had brought her to him, brought out by the greatest love.

'A couple months before he died, I saw my father meeting with a man.' She waited to see if he would respond. He was silent. 'I was walking around the house and saw them in the office window. The window was open a little and I was able to hear some words. Not complete sentences, just words.'

'Like what?'

'Work. Foundation . . . Rules. Important. Obligation. Family.' She paused. 'I came to understand the man was trying to get my father back to the job he had in America. The government job, whatever it was. My father—he kept calling the man there "Major".'

Bucky grimaced. 'So the guy, the man there, he was from the Army?'

'He wasn't in a uniform. I hid behind the house when he left, to get a look at him. I only saw his back. But, no, he wasn't in a uniform. Did the Army hire my father?'

'No,' Bucky shook his head, 'I don't think so. But that doesn't mean the Army wasn't involved.'

A nod confirmed understanding. 'I never saw him again. My father was agitated for some time afterwards. We went away, to the lake, my mother and I. Father joined us later. I think he sent us away on purpose.'

'Why?'

'Maybe he thought we were in danger.'

That danced around the air for several seconds. Bucky tried to think of what to say next. Ideas were forming, but he was better holding back as much as possible from Esperanza. Perhaps she was still in danger. It fell on him to protect her. She seemed to have some dreamy design of vengeance. Bucky disliked the government too, but he knew better than to go after them. Yet they'd never killed a member of his family, either.

'As far as I know,' Bucky said, 'your father wasn't a threat to the US government, the Army, or whomever. So I don't know why anyone would've bothered murdering him.'

'That doesn't mean he wasn't murdered,' Esperanza said, acting caustic for the first time since Bucky met her. 'Someone did it. I think it was this major. He is involved in it.'

'And you're hoping I can find information for you,' he surmised.

'Yes.'

He was glad she wanted to be so blunt about it.

'I will pay you,' she said.

Automatically he waved his hand. 'No. I won't take money for this, let alone yours.'

'So, you'll do it?'

He smiled. 'You know perfectly well, Esperanza, that I can't say no to a beautiful woman in pain.' He set his elbows on his knees, feeling back in control. 'One condition, though, that's all I ask.'

'What's that?'

Then he stopped, fingers tapping his chin. 'Two conditions, actually. Sorry,' he laughed, 'it's late and I'm exhausted. Brain's not working well. Two conditions.'

Her smile was weak, more suggestive of compromise than humour. 'I will do as you ask, if you'll only help me find out what happened to my father.'

'You need to promise me there'll be no vengeance. You won't go after anyone whose name I find connected to your father's death. God handles vengeance, not us. All right?'

She nodded. Mentioning God as Just Ruler was adept of him, whether or not he believed it. Esperanza's close relationship with God wouldn't be jeopardised by anything he discovered. Part of her beauty, after all, came from this deeply interred faith, this thing which couldn't be broken.

'The second thing: You go back to Oaxaca. Stay there. If something really did happen to your father, and I get closer to discovering it, I'll be putting myself in danger—and you right along with me. You'll be safer in Mexico than here. I can't stress that enough.'

It made little sense to her. 'They found my father in Mexico. If they want me badly enough, they'll find me, too.'

'If you stay out of the line of fire they won't. Stay out of the way. Don't put yourself in the daylight. Get it?'

He made sense. That's why she respected him so easily. The things he said, no matter how tired or dreary she was, or how her heart was breaking, he made sense.

Bucky inched close enough to cover her hands with his. She looked up at him with a shocking sensitivity. He'd won her loyalty. Why couldn't it be this easy with everyone? Why did everything have to be such a struggle?

He sighed. 'You're tired. I'm tired. Let's get a few hours' sleep, all right? I'll get you out of here before dawn. After first light, it's hard to leave Sorben. I don't want anyone asking questions, so it's just easier if you sneak out of here like you sneaked in.' He pressured her fingers. 'It'll be all right. We'll worry about the particulars later.'

'I have a car,' she said as Bucky rose to find spare linens in his crowded closet. He looked at her beyond his shoulder. 'I parked it on the south side of the security fence.'

He snickered and grabbed a pillow. Piles of clothes fell down on him, too. 'There's a hole in that part of the gate they haven't bothered to fix yet.' He exchanged the pillow on the bed for the one in his hand, tossing the other to the floor. The blanket he wrapped around his shoulders like a cape. 'Sorben is stuck in a questionable financial situation right now. They only allocate spare funds where it's really needed. The security fence isn't top priority, not like you'd think it'd be. No one's broken into Sorben in fourteen years.' He eyed her, eyebrow lifted. 'Not since tonight, anyway.' He didn't mention Zeta's inelegant entrance months before. That really wasn't Zeta's doing, anyway. Only Zee _had_ put the hole in the fence.

Bucky waved a hand to the bed ensemble. 'Pillow. Blanket. Mattress. Sleep. Goodnight.' He was setting the computer's alarm and turning off the monitor when he heard her whispering to herself a small, short prayer. Before the light died, he caught a glimpse of Mother Mary in statue form, and smirked. The light went out. And he was out as soon as his head hit the pillow.


	9. Replication

9) Replication

To tell the truth, Ro Rowen had never actually stepped toe across the threshold of Gizmo Shack before. The place was too geeky for her. Plus, it made her feel a touch ignorant: All this stuff hanging on hooks from the walls, tiny stuff to big stuff to—what was this?—she didn't know what any of it was used for. Thankfully, she didn't have to worry about it. The only thing she had to do was stand next to Zee and look thoughtful while he analyzed miscellaneous stuff for just the right stuff.

She itched a spot on the top of her head, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. Never in her life had she seen so much . . . _stuff_. Surveying the small shop once more, she smirked. 'Not even Mr Morgan had this much stuff shoved into the attic.'

'Hm?' Zee paid little attention. He focused instead on the plans in his head. Poking around in a cookie jar full of computer chips, he lifted one and continued speculation. The verbalising of the chips capabilities he skipped; Ro didn't appreciate it when he talked on about things she didn't care about. Instead, he palmed the small green and silver piece. 'This is what I need.'

'Great,' she said, 'anything else? I mean, we have a whole load here.' Dramatic was the gesture she gave to their overloaded shopping basket. Ro had been unable to hold it any longer, and only lifted it when they moved from shelf to display to shelf again. She put her hands on her hips when he gave her an unfathomable expression.

'I don't suppose there's anything here you need or would like to have?'

She folded her arms.

He ducked away. 'No, of course not.' The basket was lifted in his hand like it weighed nothing. 'I'm finished. We may go now.'

The employee at the checkout counter couldn't believe how full the basket was. But, dutifully, he started unloading it bit by bit, literally, glimpsing at the customers every so often. 'So what are you going to, er, make with all this?' he finally enquired, curiosity too strong.

Ever accidentally thrasonical, Zee smiled. 'I am building an enhanced cellular replication antenna. When it's complete, I should be able to—' Predictably, Ro cavilled and shot him in the side with a deadly accurate elbow, to take over explanation.

'We're hoping to track down my missing mobile,' she said, adding a huge, false grin. 'You know, expensive things these days, and you kind of get attached to them, ridiculously. Oh, well, it's a material age, right? And I am a material girl.'

'You're missing a part,' the employee said to Zee. 'If you want to build a cellular replication antenna, you're going to need an expansile conductor coil. You forgot that.'

Plans of the replicator zoomed graphically in Zee's internal sight. He found where the expansile conductor coil would go, then nodded. 'You are right.'

'I'll grab one for you. Be right back.'

Ro's brow was furrowed as Zee glanced at her. She had on a face of disgust.

'This may take a minute,' he said.

'Ya think?'

'You don't have to wait. I know you have a little cash. There are plenty of stores around. Find yourself some victuals.'

'Victuals,' she uttered, shaking her head. 'Forget food: I'll be finding me some stupider friends.' With a wave at the basket of Zee's goods, she turned. 'Don't worry,' she called beyond her shoulder, 'I'm sure we'll somehow manage to find each other again.'

Scanning up and down the busy street of shops and eateries, Ro bemused over the city's name, Security. This next purlieu south of Colorado Springs, where the mountains loomed to the west and the desert plains to the east, Security felt anything but. Zee chose the tramontane spot on purpose. He claimed not to know where Agent Lee lived, a fact that Ro argued; they had found Agent West's address easily enough last month. Ro suspected a different reason Zee didn't want to bother Agent Lee at home: he respected her more than Agent West. And no matter how beguiling the thought, Ro understood it, at least a little, because she felt the same way. If she could go back in time, she would've done whatever it took to keep Zee from visiting Agent West at his home. As it was, Ro felt she ought to apologise to West for their intrusive behaviour. Such a method was not to be repeated, or attempted, let alone with Lee.

So Zee had this new idea. Capable of tracking near cellular waves, picking up people's private conversations on their mobile phones, his reach was limited to a hundred and twenty-eight yards. The contraption he wanted to build would enhance his built-in scope. Instead of a hundred and twenty-eight yards, it'd be more like a hundred and twenty-eight _miles_. Somewhere in those miles Agent Lee must be.

Only trick was, she had to be on her phone. Using it. Talking to someone. At the precise moment Zee dialled her number into his program.

How was _that_ going to work? It was Sunday morning. Don't the agents ever sleep in?

Ro yawned and wandered to a coffee stand on the corner. She stirred the finishing touches in the brew as Zee tapped her elbow. He held up the sack, chunky with purchases.

'Ready to go?'

'Where are we going to build this magical implement, anyway?'

He didn't answer until he'd started the car. 'Memorial Park will suit our needs. It's near downtown, and I should encounter a more circular pattern there.'

'Point it out to me,' started Ro. 'Which way's the NSA from here?'

'Almost directly west.' But, as commanded, he pointed towards the west. She winced and looked away.

'It's kinda of near the bluffs, right?'

'Yes,' he stated. 'Part of it is built into the bluffs, underground.'

'The area called The Tunnels.'

He nodded, unaware that she remembered so much from all his chatter about information she claimed she didn't want to know. 'That's where they test robots for missions. Sometimes their programming isn't right the first few times.'

'Trial and error.'

'Of course. All robots now learn using neurocomputers. They learn by finding patterns, by experimenting, by finding what works and what fails. It's similar to the way a toddler learns.'

Ro thought about this for almost the entire trip to Memorial Park. Zee's neurocomputer was more advanced than most robots. He just wasn't the type of machine that you'd go out to the local store, purchase, take home, and put together. Little inclination did Zee have to be so servile, and he had more personality than any bucket of bolts Ro had ever come across. She glanced at him, and even though a synthoid, he felt her gaze, the way humans did, and Ro looked away. She came down with a case of the giggles, looked at Zee again, he looked at her, and she giggled some more. Eventually she hit him on the arm. He asked what was so funny.

'I don't know,' she said honestly, and stretched for a more sufficient answer. 'Life, I guess.'

At the park, Ro grabbed the blanket from the backseat, there in case she ever had to sleep in the car, or stop at a camping site overnight. Zee had his purchases. They found a spot protected from the mid-morning sunshine by a black willow, _salix nigra_. Zee usefully calculated that they would have to move the blanket every fourteen minutes to keep from being exposed to the sun as it moved the shade, but said this moving wouldn't interfere with his work. It occurred to Ro she would have little to occupy her time. Yet Zee said this was no issue: He needed her help.

The enhancer took shape within the first fourteen minutes. They moved the blanket, and began the next cycle. They only moved three times before Zee added the last component. Now well hidden beneath the boughs, Ro able to set her tired back against the tree's bark, alive with tiny ants, Zee set the enhancer in front of them. Ro kicked out her feet from a lotus position, so that her ankles were on either side of their new contraption. The back of her knees felt sweaty. It was almost twelve-thirty already, and the heat of the day exponentially increased.

Zee scooted to the edges of her feet, his own legs crossed beneath him. Too bad his legs weren't sweaty like hers. Lousy ex-government agents and their incorporated environmental stasis programs! But he had already changed holograms, from the normal to the same wardrobe worn in Club Pierre yesterday. It limited the amount of leers passers-by gave.

Concentrating, Zee angled the enhancer just slightly, then set back his shoulders as if ready to spend an hour deeply analysing a masterpiece of art. With a glance at Ro, the data cord slipped from his wrist and into the port on the enhancer. Since they'd already discussed how the enhancer worked, Ro knew what he was doing: dialling Agent Lee's mobile number. The number he knew: it was in her file. Probably right next to her street address. Ro knew they could've done this another way. They could've gone to her house, or Zee could've hacked into satellite information, or had Batman do it for them; Zee only wanted to build something. What he'd do with this exhibit of a mastermind after they were done with it, he had not yet declared.

'She's using it,' Zee abruptly said.

Ro twitched her feet anxiously. Zee saw this through powerful peripheral vision. He set his free hand over her toes. His lids lowered, demonstrating what a human looks like when listening to something intensely.

'She's on the phone with her brother.'

_Agent Lee has a brother._ Ro never really gave much thought to their real lives before. 'What are they talking about?'

His peer was sharp at first, then softened. 'Baseball.'

Ro snickered. 'You're kidding, right?'

'No. They were supposed to go to the Rockies game today.'

'The Denver team?'

'But Arlo's still in Washington.' Zee filled in. 'That's where he lives. I think he works for the CIA or in the Pentagon somehow.'

'Dang, what's _their_ gene pool like?' murmured Ro. She didn't have a chance to further the thought. Zee's expression changed. 'Now what?'

'She hung up.'

'Were you able to fix her location?'

'Oh, yes,' he said nonchalantly. 'She's definitely at home. But she'll be on the move soon.'

'To Denver?' devised Ro, all on her own. 'So she's still going to the game? By herself?'

'She's not going alone.' The data cord zipped back into Zee's wrist. 'She's taking Agent Bennett's son.'

Ro didn't know what to say. Zee continued.

'She's on her way to pick him up now. It would be best if we find a way to talk to her at the ballpark. There may be fifty thousand people there today, on a nice, Sunday afternoon, when they're playing the St Louis Cardinals. The crowd would certainly limit our chances of being caught.'

'What if the game's sold out and we can't get tickets? Then how do we get into the ballpark?'

'It will work out, Ro.'

'How do you know?'

'I just know.' He grabbed the finished project as he got to his feet. Instructing Ro to fold up the blanket, which she was going to do anyway, he headed back to the car. Ro trundled along behind him. Grumpily, she threw the blanket in its spot behind her chair and fell into the seat.

'Well, tin genius,' she said, attitude further exacerbated by his unflagging optimism, 'how are we supposed to find Agent Lee in a crowd of fifty thousand people?'

'That'll be easier than you think.' He sped the car out of the parking lot and headed north on Hancock Avenue. Traffic had picked up in the ninety minutes they were in the park. Zee knew Interstate 25 would be terribly congested, and even wondered if Agent Lee would avoid it like he was going to. 'In fact, finding her might even be a little fun, Ro.' He gave an assuring tap on her arm. She growled and busily put her socks and shoes back on.


	10. War

10) War

Breaking and entering had always come easily to Harris Harcourt. Since he'd been thieving and pillaging more than half his life, it came naturally to him now. He'd put it to good use during the war, but now he actually got _paid_, in real Euros nonetheless, to break and enter someone's lovely, hard-earned home.

Funny, entering this place, one of those mini-mansions so popular in the western outskirts of Bloomington, Illinois. Not too shockingly, the house made his fourth-floor flat in downtown Belfast look sparse and ancient.

Living in war-torn Belfast, helping rebuild it when actually there, was completely different than Bloomington, Illinois. He couldn't imagine a person enjoying living here. The terrain was far too smooth. The horizon was bluntly absent of trees but dotted with the boxy outlines of houses. The grass burned in the August sun, turning what should be green and beautiful into something brown and coarse and hard as sand. That was the biggest disgrace of all. He'd seen droughts enough in Ireland, but the land came back again, rich and bold against a silvery sky. This transformation couldn't happen in a place like Bloomington; it required a magic that America sorely lacked. At least the parts he'd seen.

On the little table in the immaculate foyer, done in pale hues that burned his eyes, he shifted through a table of receipts and bill stubs, spare keys to neighbours' houses, and other random bobbles emptied from pockets. He poked through the living room, not lived in much and he couldn't understand its title at all, until he was in the dinning room. Out the back door was a rather calm view of a bean field, ready for trimming in a duo of months, for the time of crops drew near. Already the second crop of wheat had been taken. . . .

He didn't know what he was doing here. That evaded him up to the moment he stepped into the far corner of the house. The office. Drapes drawn across windows made the small, black-shelled computer difficult to find. He didn't dare turn lights on. Breaking into houses was foolish in and of itself, but even more ridiculous to draw attention to his already suspicious presence. Unable to fake an American accent like his PIUE counterparts drew the attention more than his good looks—unfortunately. Cracking his knuckles and sitting down, he drudged up e-mails and word processing documents, absorbing it all for twenty-six minutes straight. His mobile vibrated in his jeans pocket. Dumbly, he answered.

'Ah, Harcourt. Glad I caught you.'

The phrase had the scent of a pun, considering his circumstances. 'Farrars, what do you need?' Unusual it was for his UIFF contemporary, Dirk Farrars, to call him when the two of them were actually in the same country, but seeing as how three thousand miles separated them, oddity couldn't begin to describe this event. Sometimes the things Farrars did never made sense.

'Progress report,' Farrars said. 'I'm heading over to the O'Shaughnessys' later, and I wanted to know if you'd found anything out about the girl.'

'Not yet, no. I haven't seen her, if that's what you mean.'

'Damn,' swore Farrars. He digested the disappointment rapidly. 'Then what are you doing over there?'

Harris hesitated. The enquiry was a stab in the dark, and Harris knew it, yet there'd always been an eerily keen quality about Farrars, as though he knew things that others, the more natural types, shouldn't.

'I was trying to find her,' Harris answered tentatively. 'Do you realise how hard she is to find?'

'That's precisely why we sent you.'

'I just didn't think it'd be so difficult.' His tone showed too much concern. He hated himself for being a sentimental git when Farrars picked up on it.

'Something else happen?'

'It's my own fault. I started looking into Zeta, as means of freeing Ro. And that's how I got into—trouble.'

'What kind of trouble?'

Harris rubbed his eyes and crowded his jump drive with files and documents off the computer. 'It's not going to be easy getting him cleared, you know.'

'It's not up to us. We're for the girl, when she's ready.'

'I'm starting to think it'll be a lot harder than you and everyone else thinks it'll be, getting her apart from him. In fact, I'm starting to think it'll be impossible.'

'What are you saying?'

'You can't have her without taking Zeta.'

The jump drive full, Harris pulled away from the computers and exited the house. In thirty seconds, Farrars said not a word. Then, eventually:

'I'll talk to Spry about it.'

'You'd better. Wasn't this his idea?'

'Hardly his alone. Everyone wants her back. She belongs here.'

Somewhere, Harris still believed that, too, but the fire he'd felt when he left for this mission had extinguished in the blistering American summer.

'You're right,' Harris finally said in a sigh. 'I know you're right.'

'Good. See what you can do.'

Harris's mouth tightened against the strain and pressure intimated by this stern conversation from one of UIFF's most distinguished liaisons. It resembled being smacked across the cheek by all of parliament. He wondered who'd slap his other cheek when he stopped looking.

The information he'd gathered wasn't decrypted until he returned to downtown Chicago, anonymously tucked into a hotel suite.

One document he thought incorrectly decrypted. He opened it in a traditional program, but surely something must've happened—this couldn't be actual work from a fertile, healthy, intelligent mind.

Could it?

He scrolled down and down and down, the words repeating in single sentences, over and over again, appearing cut and pasted a million times. Repetitively.

**It'll never end.**

**It'll never end.**

**It'll never end.**

**It'll never end.**

**It'll never end.**

**It'll never end.**

**It'll never end.**

**It'll never end.**

**It'll never end.**

**It'll never end.**

**It'll never end.**

**It'll never end.**

**It'll never end.**

**It'll never end.**

**It'll never end.**

**It'll never end.**

**It'll never end.**

**It'll never end.**

**It'll never end.**

**It'll never end. . . .**


	11. Winter

11) Winter

The exuberant heat hit her full across the body as soon as she stepped from the vehicle. It was hot. Really hot. She didn't care if they constantly said 'Oh, well, it's just a _dry_ heat.' Dry heat? Yeah, well, so is an oven. But you wouldn't willingly stick your head in a 102 degree oven, now would you?

Colorado drove her crazy sometimes. She wished they'd named it Colorado because it was an old native language for 'Purgatory'. But that didn't seem to be the case. After all, it wasn't between Paradise and Hell, exactly. It lay, still as an ill omen, near the grassy plains of Kansas and Nebraska, acting more like a cemetery beyond town to keep out diseases prevalent in rotting corpses. Her co-workers only made jokes about it now because all the migrants from California that'd come here, looking for work or looking to start a multi-million dollar business. But it was on days like this that she missed the east coast, Delaware and it's comely Atlantic shores; the overlooked, often ignored state that barely got mentioned on The Weather Channel, not even if blasted to its roots by a sizeable September hurricane.

She finally shut the car door, a two-seater hatchback that boasted an outstanding twenty-two miles to the fuel cell. With the key in her back pocket, she stepped up the concrete drive, clean of weeds between the cracks, and down the rose-laden path to the front door. The doorbell shuddered into the back of the house. Soon came the thundering of footfalls. The door flew inward.

'Miss Lee!' Jimmy beamed at her, all kindness and cheeriness. 'You've arrived!'

Marcia touched the top of his head, resisting to urge to hug him. She loved Jimmy, so fun and spirited, even a little odd with his graduate school grammar and inability to call her Marcia. 'Hello, Jim-Jam. May I come in?'

'You may!' He leaped aside and let her into the foyer.

Marcia felt a shudder pass across her shoulders. She couldn't forgive herself for being so envious of Bennett's house. The perfect reflection of suburban life, with three liveable levels, the type of kitchen a TV cooking show could be recorded in, and a first-floor master bedroom that was roughly the size of Lee's entire flat. But the foyer always took her breath away. The white marble floor which Jo insisted on having, the wide oak banister of the staircase gleaming in the large windows beside the door, the ornate hat and glove stand complete with vanity-sized mirror stunk of ancient family wealth. Not James's, of course, but his wife's. Marcia frowned for a moment. Bennett had always disliked his overbearing in-laws, a mutual dislike that'd disappointed him for the last fifteen years. He never had been considered good enough for "Darling Josephine", as her family called her. But her family never considered that Darling Josephine wasn't good enough for James Bennett.

'I have to finish getting ready,' Jimmy said urgently, already on the sixth step. Then he cut back and remembered his extreme manners. 'If you'll excuse me.'

'Wait a second, Jims.' Marcia waved her hand at him. Instead of having him slip down the stairs to her, she met him halfway; the two of them sat on the fourth step, snug together. 'I don't think I'll be able to go to the game with you today.'

'Why not?' His narrow brow bent, and his grey-green eyes, a combination of colours issued from both parents, seeped in everlasting understanding. There existed in him a depth far beyond typical thirteen-year-olds.

'I know you must be disappointed.'

He analysed the phrase. Finally, he shook his head. 'Not as disappointed as you are, I'm sure.'

'That's true. I feel I owe you some kind of explanation, though.'

'You don't,' he stopped her words. 'It's your business, Miss Lee. And I know it isn't because of me. But if you want to talk about it—'

'I can't,' she replied in a low tone. 'It's about adult stuff—work.' She didn't want him thinking it had anything to do with—what was the term?—romantic entanglements. An expression she was only familiar with by Arlo's constant overuse.

'You're very devoted to your job,' he announced cleanly. Then he looked away. 'Like Dad. Only—' he regarded her again, searchingly, 'not quite. Dad said you got a new job. Kind of like a promotion. You aren't working with him anymore.'

'No,' she forced a smile that felt like an arch chipped into the marble floor, 'I'm not.'

He didn't know what to say to this. On the one hand, he thought it was good, but on the other—he knew it wasn't. 'You'll be missed. I'll miss you, too. Will you still come by sometimes?'

She tried to smooth down his thick cowlick, overwhelmed with the pending separation. 'Probably not—no. But we can do something together occasionally, if you want. You know I'm only a phone call away.'

'I know. It won't be the same, will it? Nothing,' his eyes narrowed, 'will be the same again.'

The remorse in his voice matched her own. More than the apparent changes were indicated. Jimmy sensed another action, too, and whatever it was, Marcia could only guess. She was on the verge of inviting him to speak these troubles when the front door opened. The white marble reflected noon daylight and was dimmed by two broad male frames, then doused completely.

'Hello, Lee,' James greeted her, sitting on the steps next to his son. He angled his head and even presented a small, rare smirk. 'We do have furniture, you know.' They let the joke go, and he quickly indicated the sun-blond, grey-eyed figure who'd come in with him. 'Lee, this is my brother, Littles. Littles, Marcia Lee.'

She'd forgotten everyone in James's family had a nickname. It seemed fitting, a whole slew of enlisted men. Yet she'd never bring herself to call him Jimbo. That was a moniker reserved for blood relatives.

Littles shook her hand as soon as she'd lowered from the steps. 'Pleased to meet you, Marcia.' Littles was the informal member of the Bennett clan, always addressing strangers as best friends. 'I've heard a lot about you, actually. Hear you're real good with Jimmy.' He winked at her then and focused on his nephew. 'Ready for the ballgame, Jims?'

Jimmy looked at Lee for permission to speak, to see which of them would say the news first. Lee decided it was her responsibility. She glanced first at Littles, since he'd asked, but ultimately chose to tell James, being Jimmy's father and all. He listened attentively, mostly to the words between the words, those things she didn't say. He knew it had something to do with her new work—work for the street operatives she was to join officially tomorrow. It pained him that Clyde Goubeaux could dig his proverbial nails into Lee so early, before legitimately her handler. The notion rankled his insides, cutting like an unfamiliar form of jealousy. Then the blame sank in: This was his fault, and he knew it, and he couldn't make this wrong a right.

Jimmy ran off to call Frey and see if he was able to go to the game. James had done the noble thing and stepped up. He'd take his son to the game in Marcia's stead. Maybe Jimmy wouldn't have as nice a time as he would in Lee's company, but it was possible. Jimmy returned to say Frey was on his way over.

'Then I'd better run back and change,' James said. Marcia had unwittingly noticed he was extremely dirty, with grease on his hands, dirt and glop of some unknown origin staining his white t-shirt, and grass stains on the knees of his blue jeans. He had the appearance of a boy who'd been outdoors at play all morning. He saw her looking him over. 'Been helping Littles fix an engine on one of his boats.' Here, Littles mumbled something Marcia didn't quite catch. But James disappeared into the rear of the house, only after saying a farewell to his brother.

'Have a good time at the game, Jims,' said Littles, opening the front door. 'I'll be watching for you on TV. Go Rockies!'

Jimmy motioned Marcia into the kitchen once Littles Bennett had gone. She sat at the breakfast bar on a stool, elbows up on the counter. Jimmy brought her a bottled juice. They eventually settled in the family room, the room Lee liked the best. Casual and lived-in, it was a defect in the otherwise museum-quality house. Lee was always surprised Jo didn't throw white sheets over the furniture when company stopped by.

'How's your mother?' Lee asked, impromptu. 'I haven't seen her in a while.'

'She's all right.' The answer, reluctant and slow, wasn't true to his nature. Marcia knew something was wrong.

'Jimmy,' she started, seriously, 'if you want to talk about anything, anything at all, you know you can talk to me.'

He wished he could, but he knew better. 'Miss Lee,' he paused, 'may I tell you something that could be very blunt and possibly hurt your feelings?'

She snickered at this. 'I work for the government, Jims,' she fell back into using his family nickname, 'and I'm only five-foot-three; nothing you can say will hurt my feelings: I've heard all the insults already.'

Hunkered beside her on the long brown couch, he again looked away, a shade of disappointment glossing his eyes. 'I can't talk to you about it, not about Mom. You're not exactly a, um, impartial audience.'

The allusion of the meaning hit her as a slab of concrete. What exactly did Jimmy think of her? Clearly he adored her, but what of that?

Jimmy explained. 'You don't like her much, I know that. And she doesn't like you. Dad had to tell a heap of lies to get her to let me go to the ballgame today.'

Cold leaped down Marcia's throat. 'Your dad didn't tell your mom I was taking you to the game?'

He indicated that she was correct. Marcia involuntarily stood, suddenly restless and feeling as though she may cry before the next five minutes passed. Jimmy started rising from the couch, but Marcia gestured for him to stay seated. Storming from the family room, she landed in front of the bedroom door. She widened the crack and entered. James stood in the doorway to the small bathroom, disturbed and bothered by her presence.

'You never could get down the concept of knocking,' he chided. 'What do you want? Look like you've seen a ghost.'

She followed him to the closet, feeling encumbered by envy and despair. The tears stabbed dully at the back of her throat; her tongue felt swollen and out of service. James fumbled around the top shelf for an appropriate t-shirt, all but oblivious to Marcia.

'You—you—' She couldn't get the words out. He went on looking for a t-shirt, mumbling about its absence to himself. 'James, are you listening?'

'I always listen to you. Where is it?'

'Here,' she finally reached up and grabbed the first t-shirt she saw, a black cotton thing that looked sadly faded, 'wear this.'

'I can't,' he said blindly. He held it up at the sleeves and pointed out why. It said 'NSA' on it in big white letters. She grabbed it, crumbled it into a ball, and threw it over her shoulder. The search continued.

Marcia grew calm. 'Why'd you lie to Jo, about today? Me taking Jims to the game?'

He began rooting through a drawer in the bureau. But he answered, almost kindly. 'You're not taking him to the game—I am. Wasn't worth all the lying after all, was it?'

Her fists tightened. 'That's _not_ fair, Jim!'

'When did we care about fair, Marcia? And, anyway, you're missing the point: It wasn't the first time I lied to Jo.'

'But it's the first time you've lied to Jo about me.'

He laughed, high, arched, jubilant. Marcia wouldn't let him get away with it.

'Why?' she demanded. 'Why now, after all this time? What's she got against me?'

'I don't think we should talk about this now.' He finally found the missing object, a grey Rockies t-shirt, and slipped it over his shoulders.

Marcia quivered, head to toe, too angry and upset to do anything but stand there, stupidly fixed to the spot. The conclusion was rancorous but excessively clear. 'You told her, didn't you?'

James took hold of her shoulders. 'We're not going to talk about this now. All right?'

She blinked, swallowed, but the stabbing pain remained. 'You didn't tell Jims, did you?'

The doorbell rang, preventing him from speaking. Jimmy answered the door. They could hear his voice carrying from the foyer. But as they watched each other, the silence intense, they reached an understanding no words could provide.

Marcia knew what had happened. She was always quicker at acknowledging things than he. 'I never thought you'd have the guts.'

'What was I supposed to do?' he started. Aching to be angry at her, for once wholly, insanely angry, he grabbed his sunglasses off the bureau and headed for the hallway. But at the doorway he stopped and looked back at her. 'She's going to tear me to shreds someday soon, Marcia. And you know it. She's always had the upper hand—from her family to her friends. You think they won't be on her side when all this agony finally ends? My only consolation is James. He wouldn't be able to live happily with his mother. You don't really think she'll let that happen, do you? You don't really think it'll be easy. So don't—' he raised a hand in warning, 'don't ever tell me I shouldn't lie to Jo—about you or me or whatever—because those lies are the only bit of leverage I have over her.'

'It's worse than I thought,' Lee mumbled, already tearing up. 'So she's already getting at you, is she? Then do something! You're a man of action, aren't you? Take action! Leave, James! Get out!'

'I can't.' The words read like 'I won't'. 'Right now I have to take my son to a baseball game. God knows what he thinks of all the time we've spent together lately. But don't worry about Jo. I'll handle her. I have for the last fifteen years. Besides, as you see, she's not home again today. I don't know when everything became so lopsided, I just know it is. Coming?'

He switched gears so fast, from incensed and passionate to calm and protective. Blankly, Marcia followed him to the family room. Frey and Jimmy were on the floor, VR visors on, laughing and having a good time. Jimmy heard them return first and removed his visor. Lee ducked her head to keep him from seeing her upset eyes. He didn't know what'd happened—he'd heard raised voices behind the VR music—but something had. He smiled at Miss Lee; it was only feebly returned.

'Ready to go?' James asked the boys. 'We don't want to miss the first pitch, do we?'

Jimmy was pulling on his shoes when the door to the garage opened. His shoe slipped out of his hands as soon as he saw Mom standing in the kitchen. She came in casually at first, in a navy A-line dress and white sandals, a white wide-brimmed hat in her hands, along with keys and simple white leather handbag. Her loose, thin light brown hair was pulled up and twisted into a knot at the top of her neck; tendrils whipped free by the wind framed her face. Her diamond and pearl earrings shone and twinkled. She resembled one of those fancy women on television, a movie star, singer, talk show host. Just someone who didn't belong in suburban Denver.

Jo stopped at the entranceway to the family room. She scanned all of them: Frey on the carpet with his visor hanging on his forehead; Jimmy on the couch, one shoe on and one shoe off; James in a t-shirt and blue jeans, eyes hidden by sunglasses; and finally Agent Lee, arms crossed, eyes emotionless, coolly Asian and coldly beautiful.

The matron tugged off her sandals and held them together. She left them on the end of the couch. Instead of sitting and talking this awkwardness out, she went back to kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water. Then she leaned into the doorway.

'Well,' she feigned a brilliant smile, 'what's everybody up to?'

The lengthy, heavy moments dragged on in silence. Jimmy finally decided he could talk. Maybe.

'Miss Lee was just leaving,' he began. For strength, he looked at Marcia, but she was stiff as a board. He looked again at Mom, ten times more far away emotionally than Dad or Miss Lee. 'She dropped off the baseball tickets for Dad and me. Frey's going too.'

'We need to go if we're going to see the first pitch,' Frey repeated what he'd heard from Mr Bennett.

Bennett knew what he had to do, he just didn't want to do it. 'Why don't you boys meet me out in the car? I'll be there soon, okay?'

Jimmy left reluctantly. At least he could talk to Frey about this in the car. He told Frey everything, the gift of having a trustworthy best friend. He acted manly with Frey, but with Toni he could cry like a baby and she'd never think less of him.

The door shutting indicated the adults were alone. Unfortunately, none of them knew what to say.

'Nice to see you again, Agent Lee,' Jo said superficially. 'I haven't seen you since my wedding anniversary. I didn't relish in your presence then, either.' She darted an insidious glower to James. 'Exactly what does this indicate, I wonder?'

'I don't know what you're talking about,' he confessed.

'You always did play dumb military man when it suited you, James.' She grinned, then sipped her water. 'I know you're smarter than this. Why don't you show Miss Lee out? Or has she been here so many times she already knows her way to the door?' She headed down the hallway towards the bedroom.

James sighed and massaged his forehead. Relieved wasn't the word. Awkward didn't do it justice, either. Suffocating, now that was a word, a good, useable, strong word. He liked it. 'I'm really sorry,' he said to Marcia. 'Really sorry.'

'It's not your fault,' she shrugged it off, along with all of Jo's insinuated insults. 'I wouldn't have come if I hadn't been prepared to see her.' James made motions to lead her to the door, but she could find her own way out.

In the living room, Jo came again, just to watch Lee go. James had stopped between the two of them, Lee at the door and her in the hall. 'Can't you just let her leave in peace, James, and not hang on every second? Apparently not.'

'Jo.' He uttered it as if forewarning her. What, exactly, he would do if pushed too far, none could ponder.

'Isn't it comforting to watch her walk away?' Jo went rhetorical, talking to James but looking at Marcia. 'It's nice watching her walk out my front door, all my troubles housed in one little insignificant woman. Isn't it funny that something so small can cause so much trouble, six months of debilitating counselling, the thought of legal separation, even a potential divorce?'

To James's surprise, it wasn't he that ran after Jo to limit her tongue, but Marcia. He caught her at the elbow just before the two cats reached each other. Marcia struggled and eventually shook off his hold, only because he'd let her.

'I have something I want to say,' Marcia said. Fright obscured her severe resentment. So what if there was one woman in the world she didn't like? That she may, in fact, hate? The feeling sunk her stomach and heart to the very core of her now watery knees. Her hands trembled, but at least she could look Jo in the eye. 'I'm really very sorry,' she began, the words easier now that those complicated first ones were away, 'about all of this. I'm sorry you're so bitter. I'm sorry I ever met Jim. I'm sorry I ever moved to Colorado. I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry for two weeks in the middle of winter that changed our lives forever. And I'm really, really sorry that he still loves you so much, you undeserving, vicious, poisonous viper!'

She never actually remembered leaving the house. The rest was a blur.

Two hours later, she was in the only place that made sense: her office. Granted that it was a new office, but her personal things were there, photographs, plants, Zen garden, familiar tunes playing from her new computer. It was better to work than sit at home watching the ballgame on television, wishing she'd had the guts to go. But she didn't.

Every time a memory of that afternoon surfaced, tears purged her embarrassment and sadness, then abated, only to come again. She thought of calling Arlo. He could be friendly sometimes, sympathetic sometimes, but she was still sore by his last minute cancellation. Not that she blamed him. 'I'm going to be on a delegation sent to discuss, er, things,' he never liked to be explicit about his CIA work, 'with the European Union tomorrow through Friday. I'm really sorry, sis.' But Marcia missed him. Or the simplicity they'd known as highly competitive siblings, born fifteen months apart, raised in a village in south-central Delaware, the epitome of simple American life.

Impulsively, she dialled Orrin West's phone. They talked occasionally, not often about the doldrums of life, but he amused and distracted through lively conversation and Midwestern wit. But her phone slid to the tabletop when her call went unanswered and West's voicemail picked up. She hadn't bothered to leave a message.

She drank tea and played computer solitaire to ease her mind. Two minutes after the last teary flood, there came a soft knock on the door. Quickly, she rubbed the bottom of her nose on a tissue and put the computer to sleep. The door revealed the untidy hair and youthful features of Director Culpeper. From his stance in the office, Lee knew he had little or no business to discuss.

'I saw that security had been turned off down here,' he said, 'thought I'd see who was working on Sunday.' He smiled kindly. 'Should've known it was you.' Without being invited, he sat at the wide-armed guest chair in front of her desk. In his natural inclination to observe everything, and solve mysteries from this vigilance, his conclusions ripened. 'Would you like to talk?'

'About what?' She sipped lukewarm tea.

Nick's expression was warm, sincere; he was liked for his compassion. 'About why you're drinking chamomile tea, a tea you despise, and why you're rubbish bin is full of wadded up tissues, and why you've eaten half your jar of rice candy already. What's going on, Marcia?'

'Nothing.' She passed him a grin. 'Just upset about my brother cancelling his trip, I guess.'

'You guess?' He made a hapless gesture. 'That doesn't sound too convincing. I slept through most of my graduate psychology classes, Marcia, but your inclination to be hesitant with me indicates that you really do want to talk about what's bothering you.'

'You're not going to suggest I talk with Dr Weatherby—are you?' The pink ceramic mug was held tighter, waiting for his response. Everyone dreaded a referral meeting with their in-office psychiatrist, Dr Weatherby. As it was, Marcia already had spent a great deal of time with Dr Weatherby, mostly after hours, when no one would know, back in the middle of last winter, the longest winter of Marcia's life.

'Of course not,' Nick said easily. 'I mean talking to me.'

'I can't, Nick.' She thought she sounded pathetic, like James, maybe as spineless. 'You know I can't.'

'Why not? It's not because I'm your boss, right? I hope that's not it.'

'You're not my boss.'

'No, but I'm a director. I can still boss you around, boss-like. Aren't we friends, too? Always have been, since you transferred here.'

That was true. They got along well. Nick hadn't been long in Colorado Springs before she arrived. He'd moved to position of Director of Communication Operations in July, and she'd come in September. Both of them were from the east coast, Nick from southern New Jersey, which was hardly the same as a small town in Delaware, nevertheless it helped them open up to each other about the east coast things they missed, restaurants, grocery stores, sports teams, democrats. Nick singled Marcia out almost immediately, watching her at STO's and Internal Training Ops down in the lower levels. It was his praise of her diverse abilities that eventually spread her reputation as one of the finest operatives the NSA ever had. And probably his doing that caused her to become part of the Zeta Project Task Team the following month.

She fancied they might've seriously dated if she hadn't been knocked off her feet, the wind kicked out of her, by someone else the first week she arrived in Colorado. As it was, they'd spent time together, socially at ease with one another, aware of the attractiveness of the other. None of the agents had ever noticed their closeness, since they always seemed to meet after hours, worked on separate floors, often involved in completely antithetical projects. If it hadn't been for their inherent predilection to work extended days, they never would've met in the first place, let alone become friends with a strict list of fringe benefits.

Marcia leaned forward. 'Would you like to get out of here?'

He knew what she meant. 'Sure. Where would you like to go?'

'Anywhere.'

'Great. I know just the place.'


	12. Kismet

12) Kismet

Date: Sunday, 17 August 2042  
Original notes: Ro Rowen  
Compiled by: Ro Rowen

Because of Zee's constant kindness, sometimes I cleanly forgot he used to work for the government. After meeting a man like Agent Bennett, you can understand my inability to comprehend Zee as loyal government worker. If I became too idle so that I contrasted Zee and Agent Bennett, Bennett had to be the robot, Zee the human.

Rare times came and went when Zee made me remember that, indeed, the government conditioning remained conveniently lodged deep inside his hardware and programming. We were on our way to Denver when it showed again.

For once I was behind the wheel, at my insistence. I liked the car we'd had for the last few months, the tight sports steering, throttle and forward pedals which only sound like the same thing but are in fact very different, and a strong enough hover-motor to kick dust into an agent's eyes. Plus, I had to admit, when stopping at red traffic lights alongside a teenaged boy in his worked-over hunk of tin, it was nice to blow him away. Zee hated when I did this, one of the main reasons I almost never drove. He swore that one day I'd attract too much attention and the cops would pull us over. 'You're a young and attractive blonde woman driving an expensive convertible, so keep your foot off the throttle—please.' Zee's admonitions made me laugh. He had no sense of extreme living like I did. Ornery one time, at the spouting of this admonition, I asked, blatantly, if the colour of my hair would change matters all that much. 'Are you saying redheads are unattractive and homely? Or that blondes just have more fun?' He, uh, didn't answer.

Zee had the replicator on his knees. It took us five minutes to end a rather heated palaver over its use. The most important parts being my points (of course):

'You didn't need to build that thing, Zee. You could've bought a laptop, and a mobile, to do the same thing. You are programmed to do that, right? Of course you are. I guess I can't keep you from wanting to build something. It's very manly of you. You'll be wanting to set fires next, and kill animals later, loin cloth and all.'

The only point Zee made is that he occasionally felt a need for creativity. 'Next time,' I said, 'just come up with some really elaborate hologram. Like one of those Mardi Gras costumes.' But he was already ignoring me. His attention was for the replicator. He wanted to be sure Agent Lee was at the baseball game. We wouldn't make it to the field in time for the first pitch, but there was no reason to assume Lee wasn't there already.

'Bad news or good news first, Ro?'

Naturally, I only liked good news. But bad news certainly brought more excitement. 'Uh, good news.'

'We don't have to go to Denver.'

I looked around, confused, at all the cars passing me on the freeway. We'd just zipped through Castle Rock, about halfway between southern Denver and Colorado Springs. What was I supposed to do now, if we weren't going to the baseball game? 'Uh, okay. So the bad news is what, then?'

'Lee's not using her phone, so I don't know what's going on. But her phone's on: I've traced her GPS.'

A pause. Impatient, my hands tightened on the wheel. 'And?'

'I can't pinpoint her exact location, too much interference from Fort Carson and the NSA base, but she's somewhere near there.'

'She's at work—on a Sunday?'

'That's not likely, even for Agent Lee. She may be at Club Pierre.' His words trailed right over mine of disbelief. The replicator returned to the spot behind the driver's seat. 'Take the next exit and pull to the side of the road. It's time I drove.'

'Why can't I drive?' Our congruent stares answered the question for me. 'Oh, right.' We were going near military bases and military personnel. Even if I drove like a maniac, Zee's quicker reflexes made him a more capable driver. More boring, too.

The best time to plan a nice, romantic dinner at Club Pierre is three in the afternoon on a Sunday. It was so slow that Zee was able to procure a prime parking space on the street, to my relief. I didn't forget easily the horrendous parking job he'd done in the underground garage. The poor car still boasted the six-inch scrape.

The day's menu had been taped to the front entrance. Their Sunday menu varied from the rest of the week, usually with a more elaborate dish, something thought up by their prime kitchen chef. Only the dessert sounded good to me: Colorado peach pie. Don't ever let anyone tell you that Georgia peaches are finer than Colorado peaches. I've had both, and I can safely tell you which is better.

Zee grabbed my arm when I lingered too long over the menu. 'What?' I whispered. 'I'm hungry!'

'You're always hungry.'

'Hey, I'm a growing girl. Some parts more than others.' I frowned at my chest. 'Unfortunately.'

He gave me a look, scant with sarcasm and strong on ridicule. I love his anthropomorphous attitudes. Once, not too long ago, Zee told me about this old computer named Kismet. The main inputs of Kismet were vision and speech. It carried on conversations with people. It had moods, expressed by speech intonations, and people could tell its moods clearly enough. And people enjoyed interacting with it, accepting it as a creature with true humanoid characteristics. They acted socially with Kismet; Kismet acted socially with them. 'And the moral of the story,' Zee finished the tale with, 'is that if you treat something as an alive being, it _is_ alive—for as long as you're willing to forget that what you're talking to is essentially incorporeal.'

I had to later look up the definition of 'incorporeal'. I wouldn't have dared ask Zee the meaning. Eventually, I understood. I treated him like a real human being, corporeal or what have you. And, in turn, he treated me like a real human being—a first class one at that—a real lady. Anyone I could remember from my past treated me like a useless, third-class urchin; a beggar and a thief. I'd steal if I had to. A loaf of bread, maybe, to keep from starving to death. But I'd rather be somebody with Zee than one of the other millions of nobodies in the rest of the world. A mutual conclusion between us, I think.

Zee hadn't been in his typical hologram but for ten minutes here and there in the last three days. I'd come to call this new look of his Mr Colorado Safari. His long khaki shorts, hanging down to below his knees, and his oversized Hawaiian-style shirt somehow fit against Colorado's background, except he stood out a little in Club Pierre. There was one characteristic I'd failed to notice about the supper club from before: It's very old fashioned. Unless you've come at the spur of the moment, you come dressed in your finest old threads. Women came in dresses, hats, and gloves. Men came with hats, suspenders, and cuffed trousers. In the darkened eating area, with its bulbous red-shelled lights suspended on brass chains from the high ceiling, Club Pierre was the set of a classic film noir. I expected to whip around fast to the balcony and see the ghosts of old actors and actresses there: Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre—even Hitchcock. But as I scanned the balcony upon entering, my head to my shoulder, I saw its emptiness and felt a little sad inside.

I wish I could say I'd taken the time to dress up and put in pin curls so I'd fit in with the rest of the day's crowd, but what sort of time did I have? None for me. I was clad in the same tough blue jeans and the same black t-shirt. In hindsight, it would've been 'same blue jeans and same sweatshirt' because it was at least fifty degrees inside.

Pudding Houston was nowhere in sight, and Zee and I seated ourselves. He scanned while I scanned, but we always saw different things.

'I don't see Agent Lee,' concluded Zee.

'And I don't see her, but that server's fly is undone. Well, maybe we were wrong.'

Our sufficient server came by, a petite woman with auburn hair coiled neatly around rats, and with seam lines in her stockings that ran all the way down the back of her legs. Immediately I ordered a chicken salad and a tall glass of club soda rich with slices of orange. Enjoying the pretence of casual dinning, I insisted Zee have a slice of peach pie. Having a meal with Zee was like getting a candy prize at the end: what he ordered I always ate last.

While we waited for our food, three grand things occurred. The first within a few seconds of the server's departing words of 'Enjoy the show!' The lighting in the room altered, with the red bulbs dimming and rising into the ceiling, and stage lights came on, pink mixed with pale blue. A thin woman in an old-fashioned ball gown came out, a white orchid in her coiffed brunette hair, followed by a four-piece band. She introduced herself as 'Harry and my hip-to Bumbling Bees'. The drum started the song, real slow with brush to the snare, and then her voice smoothed the snare, and the clarinet brought it melody before she stopped the scat and started the verse. The second event happened then. Zee took my hand and led me to the dance floor. I hated to dance, which beguiled me. How had I become so self-conscious? But I supposed it reminded me too much of old junior high days back in Hillsburg, boys who think they're so marvellous, and even more foolish girls willing to let them believe it. And, honestly, the last person I'd danced with was Agent Bennett, so my preferences for the activity were already askew. You'd think Zee would be good at everything, yet the shattering truth is he's only a mediocre dancer. Bennett was, to my horror, a better dancing partner. Zee was too unfocused, concentrating on a million little movements going on behind the figure in his arms.

'You're missing the philosophy of dancing, Zee,' I began.

'The what?'

'Philosophy of dancing.'

'It certainly doesn't hold the same basic philosophical perimeters of Frederick Nietzsche or George Lakoff, does it?'

I really had no idea what he just said. Sometimes what he says sounds like gibberish. He speaks it. I don't. Therein is the syntactical difference between a robot and a human.

'Dancing,' I tightened my hold on his, ahem, 'leading' hand, 'is really about us, two people living in the moment of now. It's very much about the present. It's about existing as you are, enjoying it, like—you know—eating ice cream for the first time, on a hot summer evening, just enjoying it before it all melts into a soupy mess at the bottom of the cone, and drips down your hand, your wrist, to your elbow. It's about you, your partner, the music, the movement, and your life right now. That,' I smiled, proud of my explanation, 'is the philosophy of dancing.'

'Then I'll have to dance with you until you melt into a soupy mess.'

If he ever actually made me weak in the knees—and he wouldn't in that Mr Colorado Safari hologram—the sentence would have a delightful double meaning. As it was, however, he made me laugh, which a girl with any sense appreciates even more than being told she's beautiful.

The third grand event came five seconds later, causing Zee to scrape the end of my toe with his. We broke apart at the arrival of Pudding Houston. She'd come to greet us.

'How are you, Mr Smith?' She took his hand first then mine. We gave lip service for a moment before Zee asked a bold question.

'We're looking for Marcia Lee,' he said. 'Has she been in at all today?'

'Hm, Marcia, Marcia, Marcia. Let me think.'

At first I wasn't sure she knew who we were talking about. But apparently she did. Her head raised a moment later.

'No, I haven't. But I've been in my office since four. Let me ask Louise.'

She scampered off into the far corner, where Louise, our same server, took orders at a booth. Zee paraded me around until Pudding Houston returned, Louise with her. The server hooked a computer menu to her half-circle apron.

'Yeah, Marcia was here.'

Zee and I glanced at each other. Louise went on.

'Was with some guy. Nick, I think. I think she called him Nick. They didn't stay very long. Long enough to have a drink and to do some dancing to Ruiz and Heinz—'

'They're our traditional Sunday players,' Pudding added in, always mindful of business and its need for constant promotion.

'But,' Louise gave a shake of her head, 'they took off not long before you two showed up here. You probably missed them by five minutes.'

'Maybe they went back to the office,' Zee pondered aloud in my direction.

Louise snickered. 'By the looks of it, they didn't have business of the office variety on their minds, if you get my meaning.'

My eyes widened and I blushed. Zee thanked the ladies when they departed. The song ended in a crescendo of Harry's throaty mezzo-soprano. Zee escorted me, dazed, back to the table.

'Now what do we do?' I sipped the soda until I caught a sliver of orange. Zee still hadn't answered. 'Do you know who Nick is?' By a quality of his features I could tell he knew. 'Who is he?'

'It could possibly be Nicklas Culpeper.'

'Yeah? And?' Since Zee had little—or on some days no—concept of time, he got exasperating to be around, with his lengthy old-man-like pauses and distended seconds. He would be the cause of my first grey hair, I just knew.

'He's the Director of Communications Operatives at the base.'

'Is that all?' The news was disappointing. 'I always expected Agent Lee to be with a guy a lot larger than life, like a superhero.' I shied away from his conniving glare. 'Not that I ever imagined any of it, you know, until just now. I don't like this Nick guy coming in and stealing our Agent Lee. It's not fair!'

'Humans enjoy being loved, Ro.'

'Well,' I crossed my arms and flopped my back into the vinyl booth padding, 'I don't see why. I'd rather be in love with someone and never have him know, never tell him.' Since I rarely talked about it, Zee grew curious at this ardent outburst. It wasn't as hard to explain as I'd always thought. 'What's the point of it all? It's selfish. That's all. Selfish.'

He took it as sarcasm and humour. It was so trivial to him, he that would live forever. 'Yes, I suppose that the basic human inclination to love and be loved in return is an abominable act brought out by a neurological need to procreate the species.'

I laughed. I don't care if it was loud and the whole room turned and looked at me. The moment was worth it. The thought was not an original one, by no means; only original out of the mouth of a synthoid, Zee at that!

Louise brought us the food, and I dived in. I was almost finished with the chicken salad sandwich when Pudding careened around the dance floor and to our table. She bent close to Zee.

'Pardon the interruption, Mr Smith,' she smiled at us both, 'but there's a phone call for you.'

He remained impassive but I was startled. This was an unusual occurrence, but it didn't set my spine into a scared tingle.

Pudding had us follow her to the lobby off to the left side of the dinning room. And before I got too far away, I double backed and grabbed the pie and a fork. The lobby I liked, full of old-time movie posters, old art deco seating and side tables, an antique cigarette vending machine, a small bar with only six seats, and one very ugly rotary dial telephone set at the end of the bar. Pudding gestured to it and Zee picked it up. I quickly manoeuvred to a stool and swerved so I could press my ear up to the piece. Zee waited until I was in position before identifying himself to the caller.

'This is Mr Smith.'

'Hey, Zee.'

My tense shoulders relaxed and slumped practically to my waist. It was only Bucky. I recognized his unchanged tenor in just two words.

'Hey, Ro.'

I rolled my eyes. Ever did I think my behaviour unpredictable, but not to Bucky. He knew I was listening in.

'Bucky,' began Zee, 'how did you know where to find us?'

'That was easy. I traced your last few credcard purchases and started calling them up. You're at some place called Club Pierre. According to my map, it's near the NSA base. What are you guys doing in a place like that? Trying to get caught?'

'Gee, no, maggot, the thought never occurred to us!'

'Very funny, Ro, ha, ha.'

'I see Mexico didn't bring you a sense of humour, either,' I jibed. Making fun of Bucky was sometimes all his presence had to offer.

He ignored me. That meant we were becoming really good friends, sadly. 'Uh, anyway, if you guys are done with the whole "wanting to get caught immediately" thing, could you come out here? I want to talk things over with you.'

'What sorts of things?'

Zee appreciated Bucky's cautious attitude more than I. 'We shouldn't talk about it over the phone. I tried to make this line secure, but with all the telecommunications interceptions going on in that area, well, we shouldn't talk about it over the phone.'

It sounded sincere enough, and I even knew what he was talking about. I shrugged at Zee. He made his decisions based on my input and his severe logic. This time it was up to his severe logic.

'How about meeting us halfway?' he suggested to Bucky. 'That way it will only take half the time.'

'I don't think that's a good idea,' Bucky was hesitant, a quality that had become more common. 'The school's keeping a close eye on me right now—and if I left again it'll look suspicious. In fact, I could be expelled.'

'Don't you guys have summer vacation?' I asked, mouth full of pie.

'No,' he replied. 'A lot of science schools don't.'

'Why not?'

'Look, just come out here as soon as you can, all right?' He snubbed me again, but he was in the right. 'I'll be at the school. I put your names on the visitor's list through till next Sunday, so you can show up at any time and they'll let you into the main entry building, but nowhere else without a background check first.'

I slid away from the phone and left my chin in my palms, elbows on the end of the bar. Zee handled the rest of the conversation suavely, assuaging Bucky's trepidations about having us on Sorben school grounds again. But with the way our plans unravelled lately, I doubted we'd make it as far as California, let alone in the next week.

Zee took the next stool, the touch at my elbow sympathetic. 'I know how you feel about California.'

Not believing this turn of conversation, I stared. 'Well, as far as super states starting with the letter "C", it's one up on Colorado.' I lowered my gaze, a touch guilty. I mumbled, 'Connecticut's first on the list.'

'We haven't been to Connecticut.'

'Then maybe we should go!' I shrugged and scattered my hair behind my ears. 'Oceanside's all right. It's better than Pasadena.'

The smile was lopsided, my derision applicable. I was told I'd been born in Pasadena, the Morgans had told me so, but I never believed it. I seemed to have few childhood memories of the place, of California in general. I wondered what Casey remembered? Something about the thoughts of our upbringing, in California or Anywhere, USA, always smashed my insides and quaked my heart. California just didn't _feel_ like home. Often I would daydream what he'd say to me, my brother, about our childhood, growing up, who we really were. He was always quick-witted in my imagination, lightning fast when it came to speech, as though he downed nothing but caffeine hours upon hours, an uncanny resemblance between siblings. He'd tell me elaborate stories about our childhood, our parents, the strange little 'Did I ever tell you about the time when…' tales. I loved my imagination; Casey knew all about us in the fertile valleys of daydreams and impossible scenes. 'It doesn't really feel like home to you because it isn't,' he says perfunctorily, but with fatherly care. 'I think it's because we're Irish, Ro, and destined to roam forever.' Maybe we weren't Irish at all, as our surname suggested. Maybe we were left behind by a band of gypsies. Maybe we are the offspring of a clandestine affair between a prince and a common girl, or a queen and a common guy, and ushered off in embarrassment to America in the middle of the night—or in the middle of a war. Who knew the truth?

'I promise,' Zee said, bringing me back to the present, 'I won't let you leave Oceanside without a trip to Polly Jean's Ice Cream Parlour, okay?'

'It sounds very much like you're trying to buy me, Zee.'

'Yes, I am. Do say it's working.'

I held out my hand. Zee accepted it and escorted me from the stool. 'Then we'd better get going,' I said. 'If we can catch a hyperflight, we'll get to Oceanside before Polly Jean's closes for the night. Although,' I turned back to face the empty lobby of Club Pierre, and the soft jazz playing in the dinning hall, 'I think I've grown to like this place.'

He squeezed my hand. 'We'll come back. Maybe next time we'll be more prepared.'

'Prepared?'

'We'll come dressed like the others. That would be fun, wouldn't it?' He always needed reassurance on what was fun and what wasn't.

'Sure. Fun, loads of.'

I huffed as I followed him out the door. The afternoon had grown hot, and dust seemed to rise from the streets, from the scrub grass, and congeal into the gustless air. We were too far downtown to see the smog hanging brown in the valley above the city skyline, but I could feel it in my lungs. Oceanside was, this time of the year and all others, better for my allergies. I just didn't want to go.

'I'm disappointed in Agent Lee.' This announcement came as soon as Zee and I were back in the car and pulling from the kerb. 'Really disappointed.' I anticipated a contrary remark from him, but none came. Instead, he said:

'I have already voiced my opinion on this matter.'

'I love it when you talk all Sherlock Holmes at me, Zee. Oh, oh! Do it again!'

'Sheer foolish whimsy, Watson.' He stopped at a yellow light—he always stopped for yellow lights—and rubbed his chin. When that didn't seem enough, he shifted his hologram so that he held a pipe and had a houndstooth tweed cap upon his head. 'Alas, Watson, I fear I disagree with your diagnosis of love.'

'You can't turn love into logic and reason, Zee, sorry. Love can't be zeroes and ones. It can't be black and white. It's too abstract and . . . and defenceless.'

'Indeed,' he adopted an English accent, and I involuntarily arched my eyes, 'it is jolly good to hear a doctor of medicine and alchemy speaking so, my dear Watson. Bless my soul!'

'Hey, genius, your light's green.'

'Upon my word, so it is. Daresay I detected as much as soon as I saw the opposing traffic slowing down, and the brush of green light reflecting off the hood and into my lenticular coverings.'

He rushed the car forward. I felt the throttle erupt, and saw his foot hit the throttle pedal. I was immediately sorry not to be driving.

'It seems so dem empty to me,' carried on Sherlock, for once passing someone on the road who actually drove slower. 'So dem contemptibly empty to me, your diagnosis, doctor.'

'Zee.'

A curl of smoke came from the bell end of the pipe. 'Yes, my dear Watson?'

'What do you want me to say?'

He noted my seriousness. The hat and pipe disappeared behind a flash of green and teal. 'I want you to say that someday you'll fall in love and not think it's selfish. That it'll make you happy. That it'll feel like—like home.'

I stuck my forehead against the window. 'You've been reading too much poetry.' I felt my knee patted.

'I worry about you, Ro.'

'Well, don't. I can take care of myself.'

His smirk was small, hidden on the opposite side of his mouth, away from me. But I still caught it. 'That's not what I'm worried about.'

'Then what?' I turned the air conditioning up, suddenly very warm.

'I'm worried that someday he'll come along and destroy the dark nightmare you've been living in, that he'll teach you how to love without restrictions or conditions . . . and that you'll hate him for it.'

'You're right.' I decided to turn the radio on. Sometimes my attempts to sing today's pop tunes shut Zee up pretty quick. 'I will hate him for it.' Of course I would. I'm not a fool. I don't like people to design my mind and heart for me. I do what I want to do when I want to do it. And that would, very unsurprisingly, include who I hate and who I love. 'And, anyway, Zee, who'd ever want to love a girl like me?'

'You'd be surprised, Ro.'

I didn't like it. The intonation. The expression. My spine tingled. It meant he was _right_. 'You know something, don't you? You know something about me that I don't know.'

'No. You're wrong. It's not about you. It's about him.'

This was not a conversation with a robotic government agent, programmed to replace and acquire. This was a conversation with a being a thousand times better than Kismet.

'You love who you love, Zee. Haven't you learned that yet? You love who you love. And sometimes you hate him for it. And yourself.'

'But what of all that you talked to me about, the philosophy of dancing? Living for the now. An act between two—'

'Zee, that's not a road we're going down today. Live for the now. I get it, okay, genius detective?'

'Indubitably, Ro, my witty and pretty counterpart in mystery.' The houndstooth hat and smoking pipe returned. 'I daresay, my dear Watson, that love is, most inextricably, most informally, most universally, so very elementary! Love is, in a word—exceptional!' He bit down on the pipe and grinned.

One word for it came into my mind, too. But it wasn't exceptional. My word? _Common_.


	13. Got

13) Got

Her idea of fun was hooking up to his mobile phone and following their movements on an internal map display. They were in a nondescript vehicle, a small black limousine, going south on the California Coastal Freeway. She saw the exits, the overpasses, the street names. She zoomed in and out on the map for more or less detail, until she went high, high into the atmosphere, almost to 10x zoom from the satellite itself. Hardly a lively form of entertainment, it was still better than listening to him talk. How he loved to listen to himself talk! Were all men like that? Evil. Supplanting. Vicious. Ambitious. And here was he, another one, just like the others. Could he be any more stereotypical?

The distraction became the woman. Huddled in the farthest seat from them, robot of indifference and servant of malevolence, she'd drawn her legs up to her chest as if it would protect her. But one word, one command, one swipe, all would prove too much for a single human woman to withstand. Then she'd slip, lightly, as if on laden wings of pearl, deep into the darkness awaiting all mortal beings. Such a shame to have it done so quickly. This woman would've made a fine toy. Dishevelling the hair, ripping it out, tearing at the perfect seven-point figure for a good twenty-four hours or more. Far more entertaining than watching a little red, star-shaped blip of themselves on an internal map.

She must've been staring. The boss called to her.

'Gäut-chya.'

She looked at him.

'Put it away.'

A blinking lavender frame in the left bottom corner of her internal display informed that she'd unknowingly released a weapon from one of her dozen available hand tools. She bent her right arm at the elbow and spun the module to life, a two inch saw blade, only for demonstration purposes. The woman whimpered. The boss set his jaw.

'I'll not tell you again, Gäut-chya. Put. It. Away.'

The saw stopped, the blades coiled flat against the titanium rod, and the unit zipped back inside the bottom of her wrist. A bumpy, textured disc of purple propylene covered the hole. She had fingers, of course, no creator would've made a machine without them, but they were only on her left hand, and only two of them, thumb and forefinger. What she'd been built for rarely required phalanges of any sort. Her architecture was tools and weapons.

The car soon craned to a halt. Gäut-chya could see, on the display, that they were in the parking lot of a large general merchandise store. By the dim lighting through the blackened limousine windows, Gäut-chya calculated the effects: noises, contrast, density. They were near a concrete post, a steel light pole rising fifty-eight feet above their heads, and which would, if functioning properly, dribble clear sodium vapour illumination upon their heads. But the light was the only non-functioning one in the parking lot. It marked the spot of tryst. The boss had met his man. His heat and mass she assessed through the chassis.

The limousine door opened a split second later. A man in an expensive ochre suit stepped up and in. He noted the boss, the girl, then the robot. The robot made him hesitant, but he took a seat when the boss assured him it was all right.

'This is Gäut-chya,' the boss introduced her. 'She's my bodyguard.'

The doctor was not in the mood to play pacifying idiot that evening. 'What's a synthoid doing here?'

'She's not a synthoid. She's a carnoid. You can't tell the difference until you know their personalities. And a good carnoid is known by her reputation, her mien, the way she conducts her business.'

Gäut-chya nodded her head vaguely in the doctor's direction. He gave a wobbly, uncertain nod of his head in return. She fixed her holo-viewer on him, checking for a disguise; an endeavour to live up to the bodyguard mindset.

The doctor gathered his suffering strength and scattered wits. A synthoid was awful enough, but a carnoid—_positively unnerving_. There were only three rumoured to exist, and no one he'd ever known had seen one, and of course no one knew their unit identity number, let alone their HRN—Humanoid Responsive Name. Gäut-chya looked like anything but a carnoid he'd ever imagined. Tales of them were dark, putting to mind beings built of black titanium, with red eyes, fangs, tails, spikes, other fantastic horrors. But Gäut-chya had a shell the colour of summer strawberries, with pink plates near joints, purple propylene striping on her arms and legs that glowed dimly from mechanisms within, and large, insect-like dark purple eyes, with synaptic code running across them in fluorescent green. Though she was sitting down, comfortably, one knee crossed over the other like a woman, he detected that she was short, petite, which did, quite falsely, improve his feeling of superiority.

'Doesn't she ever—talk?' the doctor asked, shifting uncomfortably.

'Only when she has something to say.' He smirked at Gäut-chya, overtly fond of her, the way a madman loved a new virus. 'She's not much for conversation, is Gäut-chya; she's more a—a doer. Aren't you, my sweet?'

Gäut-chya bobbed her oversized head a second time, silent concurrence as per the norm. The boss did appreciate her, but as to calling her sweet . . . She was no piece of comfit in a candy jar.

There is a universal law, invented by ingenious science-fiction mind Isaac Asimov, that no robot will ever hurt a human being in any manageable way. Ever.

And then, a century after this creed, busybody scientists in Eastern Europe decided to create a carnoid. A carnoid's primordial initial programming is an encyclopaedia of death. Any software provided afterward is mainly supplemental to the integral agenda of murder.

'So, doctor,' the boss started, taking out a cigar and clipping its end, 'tell me what you've been up to lately.'

'Uh, nothing much.' He snickered nervously. The glance to the woman hiding in the back corner soothed apprehension more than the supposed bodyguard. 'I'm glad you've brought her along. Has she decided to help us yet?'

'No,' the man puffed, 'but I'm working on her. It's a slow process. But she'll quit the struggle eventually, when she becomes too tired or too afraid. Gäut-chya didn't have to kill her immediately, and that is always promising.'

'Well,' the doctor talked to the woman now, 'don't worry about a thing. You're safe now. Really, all we've done is brought you over to the winning side. Oh, it doesn't look like we're doing much right now, but just you wait a year. Then you'll see. You'll be on the winning side, and all the other scientists will be on the losing side. You'll like that, won't you, Ms Jenera?'

Billie Jenera, her tongue immobile from a dizzying dose of paregoric, let her eyes wander to the carnoid, the single being in the car that did not exude insanity, cruelty, or disputation. The murderess Gäut-chya might be, ironically enough, the potential liberator in a future scene.


	14. Release

14) Release

Lee swatted her hand around on the stand beside the bed. She knocked something to the floor, her badge, before finding the ringing phone. Groggy from sleep, she put the phone to her ear.

'Lee.' The difficult part was sounding awake.

'It's West.'

'Hey, West.' Sitting up a little, realising her head was pounding and her eyes blurry, she switched ears. The ringing phone or her own indiscreet tone awoke Nick. Lee held up a hand to him, urging quiet. 'What's—what's going on?'

'You got me interested in that scientist thing. You know, how they're all supposedly dying off like inflicted with some sort of ablating plague. We Jews have a fascination with plagues,' he paused for Lee's obligatory laugh. 'So I was doing some digging around, and I came across something I thought you should know.'

'Go ahead.' Meanwhile, she caught the time in the teal digits of the clock on a dresser across the room. Could it really be 19.30 hours already? Time flies . . . 'I haven't been, er, working very hard today, so I haven't heard anything new.'

'Lee, it's Sunday. Why would you be working? I thought you were at the baseball game.'

'No, uh,' she involuntarily shook her head, trying to gather her thoughts, 'no, I didn't go. I gave the tickets to Jim—Bennett.'

'I've heard the name somewhere,' added West.

Marcia ignored him. 'What did you find out?'

'The woman, the friend of Thornton Harris,' he paused to look at his notes, scribbled messily on a stenographer's notebook, 'Billie Jenera. She gave her statement to the DC police and later to the MP's. She was on the phone with Harris when he bit the dust.'

'Yeah, yeah,' she swatted Nick when he made motions to distract her, 'what about her?'

'She's married to an Irishman.'

'So?'

'He used to work for UIFF.'

'You're kidding.'

'Wouldn't kid about this. I had Marceau do some hacking into the UIFF personnel database. This guy, uh, Logan Burne, he was an agent of theirs for six years. It says he was let go three years back.'

'They fired him?'

'No. His contract was up. He resisted all attempts at contract renewal. He came to America. Married Billie Jenera. The end.'

'Crud,' she said, the most intense swearing she could formulate at that moment.

'Are you all right, Marshmallow? You sound a little—tired.'

'My sinuses are flaring up. Is there anything else?'

'Yeah.' He paused from pacing his office, the place he was used to sharing with her, but starting tomorrow would share only with Agent Rush. He perused his scanty notes again. 'I had Billie's named flagged out of the Bloomington PD about three hours ago. And ten minutes ago, a match came up. Someone's anonymously filed a missing persons report on Billie Jenera and her husband. They're missing.'

'That's not good.'

'In the realm of scientists and robots and God knows what else turning up dead and missing, no, Lee, this is hardly good. Grab some lamb's blood and smear it over your door.'

'Very funny. Next you'll have me in a tallith and yarmulke. You at the office?'

'Of course.' He explained, with ample comedy, that he and Marceau had been playing _Empress Midori_ when the flag on Billie Jenera alerted them. It ruined their fun for the evening. 'I thought I'd better call you. This is really your case, Lee. No one else's.'

With Nick Culpeper kissing the palm of her hand, Marcia doubted she'd really be entirely alone on this case. 'Stay put, West. I'll be there in about fifteen minutes.'

'Will do.'

West hung up, and Marcia set the phone aside. She delayed a moment, deep in thought, when Nick addressed her.

'Something wrong?'

'I work for the NSA,' she looked at him, 'when isn't something wrong?' Her clothes were in a neat little pile in the seat of a chair. She threw them on messily. 'I have to go to the office. Something's—something's happened. I need to do some homework.' In the bathroom, she splashed her face in the pedestal sink, then proceeded to put a new braid in her hair. She heard Nick dressing. 'Nick, you don't have to come with me.'

'Oh yes I do!' he retaliated. 'If it's so damn important that you have to go in at eight on Sunday night, I feel I should be there, too.' He bumped her from the sink so he could rub cold water across his eyes. He flicked a dampened hand a Marcia. She flinched and snickered. He'd almost forgotten what it was like having Lee around his place at odd times.

As they walked across the parking garage to the elevator, Lee tried to fill him in on the events leading up to their abrupt visit. As a field operative, Marcia's first instinct was to go to Bloomington and sniff out clues, hopefully leading towards the missing Billie Jenera and Logan Burne. But Nick, being a communications director, was more interested in the descriptive details, those bits of information already procured by West and Spencer.

'You know,' he said in the elevator, 'West would've made one heck of a communications agent.'

'Really?' Lee disagreed, remembering pieces of her history with Agent West. 'I always thought he'd make a better field operative. Have you ever seen him when he gets all aggressive and scary?'

'Can't say I've had the pleasure.'

'Well, it's . . . it's scary. Intimidating. Like Bennett but on steroids.'

Nick chortled. 'Tech ops are really the best of all four worlds, aren't they? Guess I forget about that sometimes.'

'Me too.'

Quiet came for a moment.

'Well, Marcia, I don't suppose it'll look to swell if we promenade in here together, will it? Might be a little hard to hide the do-si-do.'

'Don't worry about it, Nick.'

'Who's worried?' he added rapidly between her verbal musings.

'Besides, my clothes aren't wrinkled. Are they?'

'No, they're not.' He paused to peck her temple. 'Funnily enough, it looks like you just put them on.' He'd noticed, too. He noticed strange things like that, a vigilant man. West would be oblivious to anything, he usually was when his mind focused solely on the job. Marceau Spencer, he was a difficult man to keep secrets from. A better friend to both of them, it was unlikely he'd bring it up, even as a tease. He respected them too much to humble them.

But Marceau's loveable face recorded intrigue as he saw Lee and Culpeper arrive. He waited until they were near enough so he wouldn't have to shout clear across the Commons. 'What's the mad meaning of this? Were the two of you having fun without West and me? I'm—I'm crushed!'

West sniggered from his seat in front of a secondary computer unit. He twiddled a felt-tip pen between his fingers and set his heels on the next unoccupied seat. 'I'm beyond the point of crushed.' He frowned at Culpeper. 'Tsk, tsk, Nick. I really thought we had something. Fool me once, shame on you.'

Marceau wailed dramatic tears. 'Oh, Nick, how could you? With-with—a _woman_!' He wailed again in bold falsetto. West couldn't stop laughing.

'You guys are crazy. Have I told you that lately? Computer monitors suck out your brain, like electric zombies.'

West set his cheek to the nearest monitor and sent his body into a fake seizure, as if being electrocuted. Then he played dead.

'No zombie would want your brain, Orrin.'

'Brain and Orrin in the same sentence,' muttered Marceau, 'gosh, that there's a nasty thought.'

West took the chide by becoming unglued to the monitor and returning his shoe to a foot that had kicked it off in vibrant acting.

Nick took hold of the proffered stenographer's notebook, as West returned to his passive-assertive professional manner. Nick scanned the notes and explained. 'Lee and I were on way to get pizza—but work sounded like way more fun.'

West's brow crinkled. He went stationary. 'Lee's filled you in on what's going on?'

'I thought I could help. As it was,' he handed the notebook back to Agent West, 'I had to tell her that flying to Bloomington immediately wouldn't resolve much in this instance.'

'Ah,' drawled Spencer, delighted. 'So our lovely Miss Lee is becoming quite accustomed to the thug way of operating, I see! Isn't it a pity, West?'

West watched Marcia evenly. 'A pity. Yeah.'

Lee took the seat next to West, yanking it from below his feet. She tugged her braid across one shoulder, pulled out her red-rimmed reading glasses, and perused West's notes. 'Can you guys please check for any unidentified corpses found within a 125-mile radius of Bloomington, Illinois? That might be a place to start.'

Marceau adhered to the instruction. He gave Nick a computer, then took his own. 'Fancy a Level Five giving orders to a Director and a Niner.'

'Fancy us obeying,' laughed Nick.

Lee could feel West's hazel eyes on her. He rolled his chair nearer hers, leaned towards her, and whispered.

'Pizza, huh?'

Lee cleared her throat and rolled up a notebook page, studious, yet able to discount West's allusion as inconclusive.

He rolled back to his own computer, mind not at all on the tediousness of work. 'That's what I thought. You're a horrible liar, Marshmallow.'

That wasn't true. She was a great liar. There was so much about her that West hadn't eked out, the syrup of truth from the nectar of lies.


	15. Moo

15) Moo

Ro remained unclear of her feelings about those tiny, circular drops of moisture on the windscreen, starting as soon as they reached the outskirts of fair Oceanside. Colorado was a dry state, and she hadn't seen rain for weeks. But, on the other hand, doesn't it never rain in Southern California? Or did old pop songs build up latent and worn expectations? The wipers zipped back and forth to smear the wet away, and Ro crossed her arms. The sun had set hours ago, setting almost a whole forty minutes earlier in Oceanside than Bozeman, and all her eyes could see were glittering buildings, streetlights, car headlights. Zee pointed their rental car straight for downtown.

During the hyperflight from Denver to San Diego, Zee read while Ro compiled her notes. All hyperflights are equipped with rentable laptops these days, and Ro with her jump drive was able to write up the report, save it to the jump drive, and have it ready for Bucky when they meet him. Zee claimed the information would be useful to Bucky. Ro had no notion as to how, unless he'd accomplished his own investigating into the death of the scientists. And if he had, Zee didn't tell her, even when she asked. Zee had slipped unwillingly into his laconic, old man phase again. She was beginning to mourn the loss of his prolix explanations, including the way her skin crawled in irritation during one of those prolix explanations. His quiet disturbed her, but she withstood the silence, giving it to him as a gift.

The sign for Polly Jean's Ice Cream Parlour is a anthropomorphic cow sunning its udders and belly side, donned in reflective sunglasses with orange rims, loud swimming trunks, and accessorised with a striped umbrella of pink and green in one of its hooves. The image barely fit what Polly Jean's was like, let alone its wide, nearly unlimited menu. They served more than cow-milk based ice cream. They served the chilled treat made from goat's milk, rice milk, and soy milk. Ro's favourite, as she'd tried all of the different types so far, was rice milk ice cream—rice cream. Bucky couldn't believe she preferred it to 'the real moo'. Ro's last reaction to his disbelief was to grumpily state that 'not all of us grew up on small Mexican farms overflowing with Jersey cows, all right!' To which he merely muttered that he hadn't 'grown up on his _abuelta's_ farm', and that she only had one Jersey cow. It didn't resemble the Holstein on the Polly Jean's sign. In fact, according to Zee, Polly Jean's was more likely to use Jersey cream than Holstein cream, so the sign was gratuitously misleading anyway. Ro couldn't fathom the use of a Holstein over a Jersey. Jerseys had such sweeter faces than pink-nosed Holsteins. But who was she to judge?

With Polly Jean's being in the heart of downtown Oceanside, near the college campus and within walking distance of the Sorben Institute (known in Oceanside as The Tank), they stayed open until 12:30 in the morning, five days a week; until 2 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays. The time they arrived was nine, and the joint was hopping—or perhaps "mooing" would be a more appropriate word. Its outside, street-side location made it feel open even with a hundred people in queue. There was a lawn off to the right side of the building, filled with picnic tables with tent-shaped parasols erected above each, but it was rare to find a seat. Many patrons brought blankets to sit on. There was always the sound of giggling children and the usual sentence rankling the air: 'What are you gonna get?' And, even though they'd only been there a handful of times before, Ro swore there was always one employee for every seven customers. She could see them among the throngs, their pink and green striped polos and baseball caps visible in t-shirts and flip-flops preferred by the Oceanside denizens. Ro always felt like a tourist in Oceanside. She did manage to buy one new California-style outfit at the airport before departure time, a feminine sundress in blue print calico, with blue sandals boasting a one-inch heel. She felt almost as tall as Zee. In Oceanside, he could appear as Zee Smith again and feel it safe enough to do so. Ro was hardly sorry to see Mr Colorado Safari vanish for a little while, but she told him to hold on to the hologram, just in case. While 'back to normal', he did not, however, have on his violet-blue coat. It was warm in Oceanside that night, and his all-season attire would've attracted too much attention among the casually dressed patrons. Stripped down to his greyish t-shirt and black pants, he looked more like a regular, except for a quality about him that could not be shrouded, no matter what he wore.

They were waiting in line when a nearby group of girls, with some years on Ro, kept looking his way admiringly and giggling. One of them, finally near enough in the paths of stanchions to speak without shouting, overwhelmed by her own bravery, watched Zee with crisp green eyes.

'Are you on TV?'

Zee was taken aback by the question. 'I beg your pardon?'

The girls giggled again. Ro grit her teeth hard to keep from telling them to bugger off.

'You look a little familiar,' the girl said, 'and we thought you might be on TV.'

'No,' he smiled kindly, recognising the awkward compliment, 'I'm not on TV.'

'Then you're in movies.'

'No,' he shook his head. 'I'm not in movies.'

'Really?' She drew out the word, almost to four syllables. 'It's just that so many people who look like you are in Hollywood.' The girl returned to her giggling compatriots, and as soon as Zee told Ro 'That was nice of her', they forgot all about it. They were next in line, and Ro had to have her order ready. No sense in standing in line for fifteen minutes, get to the register, and not have your order ready. She had the ordering process down by now. Employees had a specific way of taking an order: size first, type of ice cream next, flavour of ice cream third, and finally any additional toppings. It reminded Ro of the Ground Wire way of doing this: tall, skinny, latte, vanilla, with an extra shot of espresso, thankyouverymuch.

'I'd like a triple rice, one scoop chocolate, one scoop banana, one scoop coconut, with fudge and black walnuts. And that's all.'

'Thankyouverymuch, miss. That'll be twenty-nine creds.'

And, a full minute later, Ro was a considerably happier woman. Happier still to discover the rain had stopped. They wandered back to the patio, the social gathering place of the young set of Oceanside. Ro enjoyed espying all the groups, delineating what kinds of groups they were, by the way they talked, or were dressed, or their accessories, if any. She could pick out the Sorben geeks immediately. They were always huddled in groups of five to eight, sometimes still in white uniform lab coats, always preteen or early teenage girls and boys, but their shoulders straight, their maturity enormous, their egos out of control. There were campus jocks, too, that Ro noted, their thick shoulders and tiny heads leaning into the trunks of palm trees, or on the hoods of their muscle cars, always surrounded by attractive co-eds, always laughing in crudely loud ways. Ro preferred the quiet, nondescript types, who lounged on plaid and patterned blankets, in small groups of their closest friends, sometimes talking, sometimes not, but appearing comfortable with one another, if not with themselves alone. She wondered if Zee and she looked like that, to anyone who might be watching them, trying to sort _them_ into some category.

'How is your rice cream?' Zee enquired. They were back at the car and, like the jocks, made uncomfortable seats on the hood. Zee procured Ro's canvas jacket from inside and she used it as a seat, after smearing away an already drying puddle of rainwater.

'Delicious, thanks.' She had another spoonful before spitefully declaring, 'You do realise that giving me this as soon as we get here means that when I'm done we have to leave.'

He touched her on the back of the head, a sign that he understood the joke but had no witty response. 'We'll wait for Bucky. He should be here soon.'

Ro scanned the crowds. So many young people! It was impossible to tell one from the other. 'Er, think I'll leaving finding him up to you. Everybody looks the same to me. Besides, can't look,' she shovelled more into her mouth, 'eating.'

The Polly Jean mascot, the anthropomorphic cow, came alive by some poor sucker who'd taken it as his job. Dancing about the crowd, the mascot carted his parasol, his bovine mouth open a little in a meltingly cute grin, and had his photograph taken with children and adults at fifteen minute intervals through the evening. Disgusted as she was by the sight of cheesy commercialism, Ro couldn't take her eyes off him.

'It's not every day you get to see a cow dancing in the streets of a city,' Zee reflected.

'Sure it is,' said Ro, 'if you live in Oceanside.'

Zee leaned back, hands behind him to brace his weight, and crossed his ankles. 'Where would you live, Ro, if you could live anywhere? Assuming that you pick a place we've already been. Which place have you liked best?'

'That's a very involved question.'

'You don't have to give a very involved answer.'

She scraped the sides of the paper dish, her three scoops now almost melted into one. The first place that came to mind surprised her, the purple and gold moors north of Gotham City. That bleak land, dotted with ancient mansions, had carved a satisfying image into her imagination. But she couldn't say so to Zee. It would show too much, and she'd tease herself for years, admitting a piece of outer Gotham was actually inspiring, after so long of degrading and scoffing the island city. 'Well, it wouldn't be California. I'm sick of this place.' Unaware of her own aggression, she gaped at him accusatorily. 'Why do we spend so much time here?'

He lifted his shoulders, but his physiognomy remained unchanged. 'This is where Selig has spent the majority of his life, up and down California.'

Yeah . . . but . . . so? She didn't say it. 'Where's he from, originally?'

'I haven't been able to figure that out.' He ruminated on the scant findings. 'But I don't know that he is native to this state. Unfortunately,' his intonation dipped to sadness and he looked down, 'I haven't been able to find out very much about him as a person. It's difficult enough finding out about him as a scientist.'

'He's probably from somewhere really ridiculous and _normal_—like—like _Ohio_.' Ro squeezed him gently at the ankle, the nearest part of him, in a moment of sympathy. 'We'll find him. Even if he has a lot of secrets, we'll find him.'

Finding him, thought Zee, wasn't the trouble. The trouble was finding him and getting near enough to him to speak. He looked up at the veil of night above, the clouds speedily curling off to the east, revealing a poked hole or two where only the brightest stars could be seen. He wondered where Eli Selig was now. Suppose he'd come back to Oceanside for some random visit, and they ran into him? Maybe he was at Polly Jean's with a horde of grandchildren, showing up in Zee's imagination as little Seligs with white hair and glasses and forlorn looks on their childish faces, licking ice cream cones and pondering the state of all matter in the universe.

'Well, I'm done.'

Ro's voice broke his thoughts, to his silent thanks; imagining little Seligs running around became an exponentially maddening spectacle. He started to imagine little Einsteins and Bohrs, too, and John Keats' children that he'd died too young to have. . . .

The cow came to their end of the parking line then. He teased with the jocks and their sorority girlfriends, and they had, to their credit, a good time with the visiting barnyard mascot. Then the cow, on jaunty, stubby legs, tail whipping behind him as he trotted and waddled, bowed to Ro and took her hand. He kissed the top of it. Ro was amused.

'Thanks,' she said to the cow. 'Nice to know that, er, I have the adoration of the bovine community of Oceanside.'

The cow nodded its head, hoof to its mouth, miming a laugh. He leaned in and brought the parasol down, a hint of privacy, and Ro went rigid. Apprehension scoured every inch of her insides.

'_You should go home, Ro.'_

It came upon her so fast that Ro didn't have time to compute what happened, before the cow laughed again and darted off to the next group of Polly Jean's customers.

Ro flipped around to Zee. 'That cow—!'

'Are you all right?'

'Frag it, no, Zee, I'm not all right!' She leaped off the hood of the car, the jacket seat slipping to the damp street, and chased after the cow. He saw her coming and darted in the opposite direction.

'Ro, wait!' Zee called after her. He jumped from the hood and chased after her. 'Why does she do this? If she's going to chase something, I wish she'd tell me ahead of time. "Zee, do you see that mascot cow? Well, I feel an inclination to hunt it down. Do you mind at all?" And I might say, "Of course not, Ro, if you want to chase cows that is your business, but at least allow me the pleasure of _helping you_."'

As it was, he zipped in and out of patrons, agog at the exhibition of the girl chasing the cow, and the cow running down the Oceanside street, pavement slick and reflective with rain. Zee soon overtook Ro, his stamina beyond hers, and tackled the running Holstein sixteen feet later. Ro panted and held up at the two of them on the sidewalk, Zee pinning down the cow's limp shoulders.

'Who are you?' he demanded.

'Moo,' said the cow.

Ro kicked him in the side. The cow hollered. Zee wrestled up the mask and tossed it aside. Revealed was the face of a young man, of messy blond hair and worrisome brown eyes. Ro could just barely see, near the neck of the costume, a tattoo an inch below the lobe of his ear, the design reminiscent of Celtic artefacts she'd seen.

'I'll not ask you so politely again,' Zee said to the man. They were nose to nose, eyes locked, their tension rising. 'Who are you?'

'Zee,' Ro nervously switched weight between her feet, her skin prickling, 'Zee, I know who he is.'

Bewildered, Zee let the man go but didn't break down all sense of defence. The man scanned Ro, anticipating her announcement.

'You're,' she couldn't quite bring herself to say it, odd as it was, 'you're S.E. Harris Harcourt. Zee,' she looked at her friend, 'this is Thornton Harris's cousin. The one from the Common War.' Ro analysed his youthful pate and wide eyes again. 'I think.'

The thick silence lasted until the man spoke to Zee.

'She's right. I am Thornton Harris's cousin.'

Ro knew it had to be, but the sweet Irish accent confirmed it.

'Let me up before the crowd comes, Mr Smith, or we'll all be in trouble.'

Zee held out a hand once risen to his feet. Harris Harcourt accepted the gentlemanly gesture. Harcourt offered to let them follow, politely asking, not demanding. Zee and Ro, in non-verbal communication, agreed to do so. The crowd was looming, and a low tones of a beat-patrol officer explained that someone had called reinforcements. Ro took Zee's hand for comfort and support, afraid of this new stranger and why he'd sought them out so forcibly. He led them down the next street, almost vacant except for a few passing cars and a couple of pedestrians. He slipped into an alley between a surf shop and a pawn shop, and Zee led Ro into it, certain of its safety, but uncertain of the character they were trusting.

Harris slipped out of the mascot uniform and left it lying on a comatose body of a young man. 'Sorry, mate,' he said to the man. 'Reckon you'll wake yourself up soon enough, if the bloody Garda don't reach you first.' He patted the man on the head, good and kind in nature, contradicting his premeditated manoeuvring to steal the costume from the real man behind the mascot. 'Get in,' he said to Zee and Ro, making a gesture to the tiny black car parked before them. Harris took the driver's seat, Zee sitting in the back with Ro.

'Seat belts,' Harris said, watching them in the windscreen mirror, 'this may get a bit bumpy.'

'You can't do this,' Ro said. 'We're supposed to be meeting someone. He'll be wondering where we are.' Zee set a hand on her wrist to quiet the flare, but she wouldn't be squelched, no chance, not now. 'If you don't let us out of this vehicle right now, S.E. Harris Harcourt, I'll sick the "bloody Garda" on _you_! And just you see if I don't!'

'Spoken like a true Irishwoman,' he mumbled to himself.

Ro's eyes narrowed. She growled like a discomfited bobcat thrown from its den. Harris chuckled and continued driving at a Sunday's pace.

'Relax, Miss Rowen,' he said, pausing to hit a button on the dashboard, and an indistinct motor noise was heard from somewhere in the vehicle for three whole seconds, 'enjoy the ride. You know that if I left you out right now, right here, the local PD would be on you faster than you can say "moo". Aren't I right, now, Mr Smith?'

'I'm afraid he is right, Ro,' Zee said to help placate Ro's enormous aggression, brought out by a fear she did not understand, nor did he. 'If he is Thornton Harris's cousin, then I believe he isn't going to harm us. He's probably been looking for us.'

'I wasn't looking for you, Mr Smith. I was looking for Miss Rowen.'

Ro stiffened. 'What?' The word stumbled out of her mouth. She'd just snapped on her seatbelt when the car jerked to a stop. It was so abrupt that Ro already felt a contusion from the belt strap forming in her collarbone. A little dazed, fear rising, she angled her head to peer around the seat in front of her, out the windscreen, to what had caused the near collision.

A man in a long dark coat stood in the middle of the dead road. The rain had started again, smearing his image behind rivulets rushing down the glass. The headlights highlighted his tall, stretched features and form, and made the cordite gun in his hands appear almost alabaster. It was aimed right at the car.

'Jaysus!' Harcourt threw the car into reverse and turned around. He punched the throttle. They were heading back the way they'd come. At a turnoff, he veered the car north to avoid Polly Jean's. Now that he had a moment to think for himself, he brought out his mobile and hit speed dial number five. 'It's Harris.'

'What's going on, Harris?' Farrars asked. 'You sound like you've just crapped your kacks.'

'He's after me.'

'You're joking.'

'I'm serious. He's right behind me.'

Farrars swore, with Irish bite in it. 'Well. Have ya got 'er?'

'That I have. Why else would he be after me?'

'I didn't anticipate this.'

'Oh, and like I did!'

'You're going to have to let her go. He won't leave you alone otherwise.'

'Dammit, no, I won't do it!'

'You're gonna have to.'

'No!'

'Don't make me pull rank on you, Harcourt. Do it!'

Harris wrestled with inner demons long enough to calm himself down. It wouldn't be the end of the world if he released Ro Rowen back into the wilds of America again. They found her once, they could do it again. 'Fine, fine, I'll do it.'

'Good. Don't call me again unless you're dying in a ditch somewhere. Farrars out.'

Harris closed his mobile and tossed it on the spare seat. With both hands on the wheel, he yanked the hovercar to the east, down a long, unlighted road than ran a slight decline to a well-lit area: Sorben campus.

Ro remembered hearing a revving engine just before she shrieked when an impact jolted their car. Zee removed her seat belt and helped her into the front seat, where, supposedly, it would be safer. Harris thought that if he could make campus, their interloper would forfeit his claim.

A second compact hovercar broke free from the rear and rode alongside. It unnerved Ro, who worried they'd all be shot, or, worse, that they'd be kept alive but left to the hands of the feds.

'He won't shoot us,' Harris told Ro, yet that's not what relieved her.

Relief came when something thudded in the front of the vehicle. There was a plume of steam and smoke, a lessening of engine noise, finally total quiet. The car lay dead in the middle of the road, more than halfway to the Sorben entrance gate.

Harcourt, countenance unshakably authoritarian, grabbed his hydraulic and shoved it out the crack he'd made in the window. The man was nowhere in sight. An eerie, thin voice trailed to them, from an unknown point of origin.

'It's not them I'm after, Harris,' the man said. 'It's you I want.'

Ro only vaguely computed the words. Everything had become unbelievable, unreal, and immaterial. 'Zee?'

'Yes?'

'I feel . . . dizzy.'

Harris felt it too. He scanned the dashboard, calculating how this was possible. 'It's the ventilation system. He threw out our front hover motor and imbedded noxious gas into the vents. Ro,' he banged on the window with the butt end of his gun, to crack the glass, 'just hang on. Don't—don't breathe. I'll get you out of this.'

Zee tested the quality of the air. He detected large traces of nitrous oxide, N2O. There was so much of it that it completely overwhelmed nitrogen and oxygen. He lifted his elbow to break the window beside him. The glass broke in one swipe. He did the next window, but didn't dare get out of the vehicle to break Ro's window. Through the empty frames he tried to catch sight of the man, but he wasn't able to catch a full glimpse for more than a second: the man moved in Zee's blind spots, as if knowing where he could stand without being seen. Zee watched Ro's head bob and attempted to revive her by speaking to her, but it was no use. The nitrous overwhelmed, knocking both Harris Harcourt and Ro unconscious. Zee flinched at an object hurled at him from one of the open windows. The attempt to miss being hit was poor. It latched on his upper left arm. The internal display told him he'd just been rendered immobile, with all external movement debilitated, by a virus crab. It knocked out access to higher levels of software, putting a freeze on pre-programmed neurochips. The only activity he could do was work on extracting this virus, done automatically, without his having to command it.

'My apologies,' said a lazy English accent.

Zee sensed the shape of the man out his peripheral vision. A tall man, six feet and maybe five inches, with dark, spiky hair, a long face, long chin covered in a well-trimmed goatee. Zee wished he could ask who he was, what he was doing there, what he wanted Harris Harcourt for.

Harris was dragged unceremoniously from the driver's seat. Zee heard another car door shut. But then the man came back.

'You'll be all right in seven minutes or so.'

At first Zee supposed the man was talking to him, then realised he was addressing the unconscious Ro, slumped over in the front seat.

'It's probably best if I can get them to leave you alone for a while. But I can't do it forever,' he went on, then sighed. 'You're going to have to find out eventually.' He reached for the hand on her knee, squeezing her fingers. 'When you do find out, Rowen, I'll be there. I promise you that.' He started rising from the driver's chair, sense of duty accomplished for the moment. 'Grand to see you again, Number Six.' He gave a cheery, toothy grin and saluted. 'Farewell.' Then he was gone.

Zeta had repaired the mobility to his right arm in the next five minutes. He was able to check Ro's pulse but not much else. Fifty-two beats a minute, almost like she was asleep.

He heard the scampering of feet, three pairs, and waited for the inevitable arrival. But what he was not prepared for was the face of Bucky Buenaventura greeting him at the open door.

'Zee, Zee, Zee.' Bucky shook his head in a reserved show of disappointment. 'What have you gotten yourself into now? Here.'

Bucky stuck something small and pointed on Zee's forehead. Zee felt his hologram melt away, then a detection of a new wireless connection in his system. Bucky had a handheld and was checking his systems.

'I see, that's very interesting. A VR-26 Crab. Craig Systems Design—out of the UK if I'm not mistaken. Very interesting.' He showed it to Schweiterman, and Schweiterman nodded agreement. Bucky then removed the wireless port from Zee's forehead. He commanded Schweiterman and Danes to check on Ro. He hunched his shoulders to look at Zee again.

'Thanks for coming.'

Zee was slowly gaining access back to the movement of his cranium, but he could only move it about twenty degrees to Bucky.

'No, please, don't get up,' Bucky smirked. 'There's really only one thing I wanted to tell you.' Bucky could almost see the cartoon balloon with a question mark in it forming over Zee's shiny pate. 'Dr Tannor's disappeared.'

Zee couldn't understand why this was important.

'I mean,' Bucky hadn't exactly planned the most economical way to make this announcement, 'he'd already left Sorben before, but now he's really, really gone—from Oceanside. He stole some things from the school before he left. Adamantium and lithantium weave cloths developed in our laboratories. Some software. Some computers. Some information. Zee,' he hesitated out of fear, 'I really think I may have figured out what's going on.'


	16. Breakfast 2

16) Breakfast

'Are you sure it goes on this way?' Aoife Owens Fitzwater pointed to the head of the bed, where the tops of the shams showed under the hem of the new bedspread. 'The pillows are showing, love.'

Gráinne O'Shaughnessy saw immediately what her cousin meant, and pursed her thin lips. A slip of straight, ash blonde hair dripped over her shoulder as she bent to set right the hem.

'If you tug anymore at it, love, it's gonna ride up and show the mattress.'

'Good grief.' Gráinne gave a laborious sigh and slumped to the bed, arms fanned out to her sides. It seemed like they'd been at this for hours. 'I'm starting ta tink I shouldn't've bought ta ting.' She caressed it lovingly, the patches of silks and satins, done in her favourite scheme of ivories and mauves and gentle greens. 'I do love it, though. Do you blame me, Aoife, for wanting ta keep it—iven toe it don't fit proper?'

Aoife smiled, her deep blue eyes crinkling into slivers. She tossed her rather bland golden brown hair beyond her shoulder and took a place next to Gráinne. In the bedroom they shared, of an old house in the north of Ireland, they collectively stared into the ceiling, saying nothing worthwhile till sounds reached them from a cacophony of laughter below.

'Ainge,' Gráinne said, recognising her older brother's rare laugh as it careened lovingly up the staircase.

'He's in a good mood.'

'Poor Ainge.' Gráinne flipped to her stomach, chin at the bend of her elbow. 'Niver does get much of a chance at laughing these days.'

'Days'll go by right quick enough, love. You'll see. We'll all be right as rain again soon. And other happy clichés.'

Aoife was the only one in their close-knit family, of cousins, brothers, sisters, and one uncle, not to mention a dozen or more friends that were more like family, who ever called Gráinne 'love'. Her name, Gráinne, meant love, in old Irish.

They both roused themselves as Lorena O'Shaughnessy entered, wringing her hands clean on a dampened dishtowel. 'You two lazies coming down for a meal, or are you planning to slape your way through it? I'll not bring it up to you. You'd best come down to it, before the boys have it all and you'll be left with none but plate to eat.'

Aoife groaned discontent. Gráinne rose obediently but hassled her sister. 'Are you sure you made enough, Lorena? What if Demy shows up? That'll be five men who'd need feedin'.' If Lorena had a comeback, it was lost on Aoife. She rose herself slowly, divagating down the narrow staircase with steep steps, avoided stubbing her toe on the end table just at the bottom, and slumped her way into the oversized kitchen. The house, built as a grand farmhouse in the 1890's, had its life in the kitchen. It'd been remodelled through the years, but its sense of antiquity, its essential soul, had always remained. The large dinning room table had been in the same place for three generations, dent and scratched and one of the most adored antiques of all. Who knew how many of Ireland's elite had taken tea there, during the years of war? The number too numerous to mention. It made her queasy in ecstasy just thinking about it.

It was about to serve three members of UIFF, too, this morning. An enormous Irish breakfast, all laid out in glassware serving dishes or porcelain platters, to be divvied up among the seven of them. Enon claimed his normal spot at the head of the table, his right as the eldest O'Shaughnessy. Though not a member of UIFF, Enon had a brusque, churlish quality; he was all business most of the time, yet his rough hands could bring a nearly dead elm back to life in a matter of days. Lorena, second oldest, the mother of the family in title only, darted back and forth to make sure everyone had what they needed. She served coffee to her brother, two years younger, Ainge. The most handsome of all the O'Shaughnessys, with classic good looks and his mother's gold hair, his father's blue eyes, was the shiest and most intuitive of the clan. He understood Gráinne best, the two of them most alike in personality, neither of them really finding their niches in life as they crept along through the years. Ainge enjoyed the family business as much as all of them, but, as Gráinne put it once, 'he's always just holding back too much'. The man next to him, Dirk Farrars, long-time UIFF member, never held back, except from haircuts and a razor once in a while. Aoife swore she'd faint the day Dirk showed up at their house clean-cut and in a right-fitting suit. His clothes were commonly threadbare and baggy, his hair a constant mess of burnt umber locks, his chin and jaw constantly shadowed by stubble. Aoife supposed he looked this way to toughen his image, because, deep down inside, she knew him to be a very generous and caring man. He'd rather nobody know it. Rooting through the fridge, his short frame completely hidden behind the door, was Ryan 'Spry' O'Shaughnessy. On a good day, with boots on and a strong breeze stretching his long hair north, he made it to five feet and one inch. All other days, he was a reasonable five feet. Wild on the outside, his flamboyant taste in clothing matched a moody, resilient personality. With strands of his shoulder-length brown hair bleached, others streaked ebony, his highly saturated teal irises stood out brilliantly from a lightly freckled face and small, upturned nose. All the O'Shaughnessy's, save Ainge, had teal eyes. Green near the pupil, blue toward the iris rim. Aoife loved that about them. Her eyes were grey-blue, plain, boring, with nothing fancy to them. It was the only thing she and Demy, stepfather to the O'Shaughnessys and her uncle, had in common—physically, anyway.

Slumped at last into the only seat saved for her, next to Spry, because she was the only one who could put up with his belching, she stacked scrambled eggs on one corner of her plate. The boys were talking football, the Ballyclare Comrades; Lorena hadn't yet taken a seat; and Gráinne was talking to Ainge about who was responsible for gnawing at her basil patch the night before. Aoife munched bacon, relaxed, and watched Lorena get up from her seat one more time.

'Sit _down_, Lorena!' Aoife commanded.

Lorena did so, too frightened by the outburst not to. 'I just wanted ta get anutter ting of pepper.'

'Jaysus,' Aoife said, 'I'll git id far ya.' She rose from her seat and made a dive for the stove, where the other pepper shaker rested innocently.

Lorena glared at Gráinne, who shrugged. It was rare that Aoife was ever so upset that her strong Isles accent came through. She spoke a brogue apart from their musical Kildare. Raised half her life in County Antrim, she'd lived the rest of her life in England and Scotland. Most of the time her accent was heavily Southern English, Surrey and a touch of Kent, and sometimes she'd slip and allow some Scottish to shine through. But rarely did she show all of it at once: English, Scottish, Irish. Strangers mistook Aoife for being English, which she adamantly despised. And her name, Aoife Owens Fitzwater, was still synonymous with His Royal Highness Prince Hayden, youngest son of King Edmond. Aoife, too, vehemently denied this, but could not escape the widespread gossip hooked into those sporting royal connexions.

The pepper shaker Aoife left within arm's reach of Lorena. She went back to stuffing her plate. 'Pass me a slice of the bread, Dirk.' He tossed her one, and it landed in a nice spot on her plate. 'Don't be showing off at my table, Dirk Lorcan Farrars, or I'll shave that ugly mug of yours with my blunt razor!'

But he knew how to handle her, having been around her for the last dozen years, and only winked the threat away. 'You didn't say please, Aoife.'

She stuck her tongue out at him. '_Maith go leor!_' The others, with their tender chuckles, were ignored.

Eating is a favourite pastime on their farm, and hardly anyone spoke once food was served and dished, except to say what was good, and politely ask for more to be passed to them. So it startled them when Dirk's mobile rambunctiously blurted to life in the middle of the meal.

'Are we never to have a day of peace with you around, Dirk?' cried Aoife, rolling her eyes and shoving egg in her mouth.

It was difficult not to listen to Dirk's side of the conversation. His intensity slowed everyone's eating. Finally, he hung up and jumped from his seat in the same moment. They followed him with their eyeballs as he opened the back screen door. When they heard the sorry engine of an old lorry approach, they threw glances around at one another, then, in silence, got up from the table at an identical moment. Aoife didn't know why, or what was going on, but her heart was pounding in her chest, and she was the first to reach Dirk outside. She asked him to explain, but he only waved a hand at her. Out of the lorry fell a petite woman with red hair and grey eyes, her attire sombre, her hat black and still bearing the Irish weeper in orange, white and green, the colours of the flag. Aoife gathered, by Heather Muldoon's staunch look at Dirk Farrars, that she'd been on the phone with him only seconds before. His secretary at his dinky UIFF office in Killarney, some distance to the west, was a rare and somewhat unwelcome appearance at the farm. Old Leah, the mutt shepherd, tore across the grass from the barn and barked her head off at Heather. Enon grabbed the dog's collar, escorting her toward the paddock and greenhouses, past the herb and annual flower gardens.

'Ah, fantastic,' Lorena said, cross, her arms around tight around her middle, 'a UIFF meeting here at my house at breakfast. The lot of you have some nerve! Gráinne, come and help me clane up.' She pivoted towards the house, shoulders high in dignity. Gráinne, head tipped shyly, followed her.

'Well,' Ainge remained polite, tilting his head to the guest, 'it's nice to see you again, Heather.'

'Thanks, Ainge, you too. I really am sorry for the interruption. It's namely Dirk I've come to speak to, but the others can stay.'

'I'll just head back to the house then,' excused Ainge.

'No, Ainge,' Heather hailed him, 'you can stay. Better that you hear it now anyway. Rather I tell you than someone else.'

Ainge remained, but stood apart the group. Percy, the farm's other shepherd mutt, came to lick his hand and inspect Heather. She waited, uncertain where to begin, with too much on her young mind.

'Harris Harcourt is dead.' She blinked while reciting it. Then her head bowed and she crossed herself. 'Arleigh Forde found him.'

Dirk was business and nothing else, not even taking the time to cross himself. He'd left that behind the first month of war. 'Where?'

'California somewhere. Dead. On the side of the road. I just can't believe it . . . Just can't believe it.'

Aoife swallowed. She'd liked Harris Harcourt. She'd known him since he was nine. He was the same age as her, which shrank her heart and shrivelled her nerves. Seventeen years old, and it could've been her dead out there in California just as easily. 'Who did it?'

The grey eyes of the Muldoon clan swooped to Aoife. Heather hadn't yet said how he'd died, but Aoife was above assuming anymore. If anyone would've been murdered, it would've been S.E. Harris Harcourt. She'd adored Harris, as had they all, yet he'd always walked around with a death wish. He took the cases no one else would, on account of the danger.

Heather steered a hand to her slim hip. 'Who do you tink, Aoife? Who else would've done in a Harris Harcourt, and have ta gall ta leave him sittin' out in ta open like some dead animal?' She went on explaining to Dirk, her boss, but was aware of Spry, also a capable UIFF field agent. 'You're gonna have ta send someone else, Dirk. If ya want someone ta find him, you're gonna have ta send someone else, tat's all tarr is ta it.'

Dirk rubbed his chin. Aoife's heart throbbed thickly in her ears.

'I'll go,' Ryan said, lifting his shoulder's casually, as if he'd just suggested to go to the supermarket and not four thousand miles away.

Immediately, Dirk shoved his hand to Ryan's shoulder. 'You're not going, Spry.' He turned to his secretary and friend. 'Heather, I think we'd better go to Dublin. If they haven't decided to summon us now they will in an hour. I don't want anyone going after him, and I don't want anyone going back to the States, and I mean to get my way this time. I didn't want them to send Harris in the first place,' he uttered to himself. He swept back his hair and made motions to enter the house. He lagged his steps when passing Ainge, but as he had nothing to say, disappeared into the foyer.

Ainge surveyed his cousin and little brother. 'I think you two should go along. Dirk would disagree with me, but I think it's a good idea.'

'I agree,' Heather spoke. 'You should come. They'll want as much information as we can give them, and it'd be best if you heard all of this for yourselves.'

'I'm with you,' Ryan said. 'But I'm just gonna pop back into the house for two secs and bag up my breakfast. Bit of a longer hike to Dublin than Belfast.' He tapped Aoife on the arm. 'You be wanting something, Aoife?'

'I'm not hungry.'

He said he'd grab something for her, anyway, if she should change her mind. Aoife only returned to the house to grab her hat and umbrella, armed with beforehand knowledge that it was raining in Dublin. Heather rode on ahead, unable to carry any passengers in her small vehicle. Aoife and Ryan left in Dirk's luxury sedan, the company car, seven minutes later.

Aoife, in the front seat beside Dirk, watched the farm peel away behind the kerb as they crossed the Six Mile Water. She sunk into her seat, blinked as they hit downtown Ballyclare, and tried to keep her heart in one single piece.

'Dirk?'

'Yeah.' He took out a fag and lit up, petitioned by Lorena years ago not to smoke inside her house.

'Hear anything about Ro?'

'No.'

Ryan mumbled an incoherent line from the backseat.

Dirk turned the car to A-95 south, beginning the seventy mile trip to the Irish capital. 'I don't know, Aoife, but I'm starting to be of the opinion that Ro should be left alone for a while. Never should've gone after her in the first place.'

'But, Dirk—'

'No,' he swiped a hand through the air, leaving a trail of smoke, 'I won't change my mind, Aoife, no way. And that's what I'm going to tell the others, too, at this meeting.'

Ryan shifted so his head was between them. 'But can't we, you know, keep an eye on her, make sure she's all right, from time to time? No harm in that, is there? Though I agree with you on it, Dirk, and we shouldn't attempt to do more than that right now. It's too dangerous. Don't want to see anyone else dying 'cause of it. And, anyway, the whole thing, all that's in the past—it isn't exactly neatly tidied up, is it? Still got the war to reckon with, ghosts to play with. It's not right, dragging the girl back here before she's ready.'

Dirk finished with the cigarette before responding to Ryan. They were touching the northern tips of Belfast by then. 'I'll mention it to them, Spry. When all's said and done, I can't let it go, not entirely. She needs to be watched. That's all there is to it. By you, or me, or all the damn Principal Republican Army. If he knows where she is, well . . . Better we pitch in to help that Infiltration Unit of hers keep her alive.' His knuckles whitened as his hands curved into the steering wheel. 'I will _not_ have her die. It'll happen only over my dead body—and the dead bodies of three million of my fellow countrymen. Ireland will _not_ lose another Rowen.'


	17. Weight

17) Weight

Gäut-chya never cared much for the Caribbean. Sand she particularly despised, and if the Caribbean had much of anything else besides water and sand she'd be dead surprised. Sand slipped into everything by some magical yet unknown force, into her joints most especially. There it would stay, grinding as she made the easiest of motions, walking, bending an elbow, even tilting her head. While having no sense of pain, she had sensations of discomfort when not performing to the best of her ability. This lowered mobility vexed.

The third purple disk on her right hand slipped away. A flexible silicon tube with a narrow, one millimetre nozzle at its top, extended from an array of tools within. She went to work airing herself down at the joints, starting first with her neck. Really, sand was so superbly irritating to her insensitive metal skin and high-tech inner wiring.

Poised on the end of the dock, with crystal clear water and pearly white sand beneath, she watched the horizon of the ocean from this tiny private island. The cruiser they'd used to arrive lay on a landing pad twelve feet to her left, fashioned on stilts over the tide. The cruiser, small but luxurious, showed that her new owners would never do anything traditional and halfway when it came to money—and spending. But it handled well, the cruiser, rather like piloting a very willing cloud high in the atmosphere. She'd flown the boss and his men from California to this island during the night, careful to avoid authority entanglements, a custom of the men she had somehow managed to be surrounded by. The island was owned by one of those men, the loudest, most dirty-mouthed of them all. Details were miniscule as to his true identity, and Gäut-chya had only seen him from afar, for Titus Sweete abhorred robots of any type. And carnoids? He wouldn't even deign to acknowledge their existence. Gäut-chya was on the dock for her own safety, the owners keenly aware of Sweete's hatred of all things metal and microchips. They feared that he may, if his temper flared, attempt to destroy her. While it was good of the bosses to be concerned of her welfare—she was too important to them—they were as stupid as most humans, believing that a carnoid would let an anti-tech totalitarian ass destroy her. She could crush Sweete in one swipe of her arm. She could poison him with a complex array of prong darts. She could choke him to death. She could hold him under the crystal clear water until it filled his lungs and stole his soul—and the last thing his bulging grey eyes would see were guppies and coral off the coast of his precious island home. But Gäut-chya wouldn't kill him. She had no interest in it. Only, if he came after her first, that was different. Gäut-chya just hated the idea of killing dumb animals—Sweete right up there with stepping on an ant or squishing a spider. He was trivial, stupid, prone to making mistakes. He'd probably get himself killed before the year ended and 2043 began. Yet he had been smart to set aside enough money to live comfortably between Brother's Day attacks and armament, and Gäut-chya begrudged him that.

She could hear his obnoxious Gotham boroughs voice coiling down through the palm trees and palmetto underbrush from the castle-like mansion. But she ignored it. Instead, she traced through the radio airwaves, listening to boats and commercial aircraft for a while as she cleaned between the three joints on her left foot. Then she switched to unrestricted airwaves, what free radio there was anymore, and listened to a local public radio station out of Martinique, favouring an eclectic mix of songs over the last century. Gäut-chya enjoyed 'human music', as she'd titled it. Such an interesting way to learn about human behaviour. They certainly wrote a lot of songs about love. Music would not exist, she philosophised, without this thing called love. At least the music drowned out Sweete's voice, as it rose exponentially with the minutes as well as the sun. They were discussing business. Something about the finances of Brother's Day, the future of it all, the future in general.

Gäut-chya stared into the ocean. Fish came and went, leaving ripples of shadows across the viewable ocean floor. She knew the species, every single one, detected by her internal encyclopaedia. Initially she'd had no information program, only the very basics were known to her, but it had been an improvement she'd made on her own, during those wondrous two weeks she'd belonged to nobody but herself, roaming around Turkey, Russia, the Balkan states. She'd disguised herself as a middle-aged computer consultant, a former teenaged hacker (if anyone asked for past details), and earned good money fixing other people's software and hardware problems. Until, one afternoon, it all slipped away in a barrage of fire power and physical altercations. Now she belonged to _them_. Men of meaning. Of ambition. Of money.

The combination was beyond perilous. These men could destroy the world if they wanted. But that's not what they were planning, either. She couldn't decide what all of the code words she'd heard actually meant. They were planning something very big, and if she could find out what it was, maybe she could stop them. Why, though, would she want to stop them?

She put the air gun away. Her thick legs, built for high speed running, dangled over the edge of the wooden dock. She kicked her wide feet back and forth. Abruptly she stopped all movement. Then, without thinking about it, tilted forward and fell into the water. At the point of the far dock, the water was six feet deep, a foot over her head. Unlike a synthoid, she was incapable of altering her height, expanding her shell, and had to take her five foot frame as any adult human would have to. The only thing she could do was make herself _smaller_, and that was rarely helpful. She accepted her shortness, this below-average height, with a calm vengeance. The scientists that'd built her had made her shorter than the average woman on purpose: to find her with greater ease. They hadn't found her yet. Three months had gone by, and she knew they'd stopped looking. They were probably building the next carnoid, a male version this time, as they always alternated between the superficial intimations of sex. Male carnoids were taller, sleeker, made of black and grey, heavier weapons, dumber neurowafers. Females were shorter, curvier, designed for speed and communication interception, a mindset more akin female perspective. Intuition, understanding, concept thinking, even the way they problem solved was closer to human women than the male carnoid.

Listening to the music underwater, watching the sea life float and swim about her, brought a whole new meaning to a woman's perspective of the world. This was the way the ocean ought to be experienced, from under it, in it, part of it. Not on the outside looking in. That was no way to live. Experience, now that was what life was all about.

She wondered how long it'd be before someone noticed she wasn't watching the ship. Long enough to enjoy the view for the next five minutes. Sunk to the bottom like a dead weight, Gäut-chya careened around, walking about the cruiser dock, then to the other end of the dock and back. She was sitting on the floor, legs crossed under her, when a consecutive set of thumps on the above wooden planks set her attention. A splash came. A figure was in the water before her. Surrounded in air bubbles, it was hard to see who it was for a moment. The bubbles cleared up to the surface. The face of Billie Jenera appeared. She looked pale, nearly translucent, in this strange undersea world. With the woman's eyes open, she spotted Gäut-chya, calmly at rest on the ocean floor. It startled Billie so she flailed and kicked arms, legs, tossing her head, streaming her hair around in watery wisps. With her intuition, Gäut-chya reasoned that Billie Jenera was attempting to escape. She wouldn't get far, not in this water. Already, fifty miles out, Gäut-chya had spotted keen sea predators. Gäut-chya tried bringing serenity to Billie Jenera. Why shouldn't they help each other? Both of them wanted to escape. Yet Gäut-chya knew it was no use for her. What would she have to escape to? Her whole being was about destruction, it was what she'd been built for, and why try to run from it? Better to stay and do as her purpose declared. But Billie Jenera was a _human_, taken against her will. So had Gäut-chya been taken against her will. That settled the matter for the stubborn carnoid. She grabbed the woman's shoulders and tossed her upward. Billie broke to the surface and gasped for air. Gäut-chya met her there.

With supreme strength, Gäut-chya grabbed Billie and lobbed her upon the dock. Billie lay there, choking and sobbing, drying in the hot August sun. Using her strong arms, Gäut-chya brought herself out of the water. Her metal parts dripped, dozens upon dozens of mini internal fans setting about to dry her insides and regulate her temperature. Kneeling next to Billie, Gäut-chya hesitated, but eventually her left hand lifted, the only two fingers she had extended, and brushed dampened locks of hair from across Billie's eyes and cheek. The woman cried liberally.

'You should've let me drown,' she said between sobs. 'Why couldn't you let me die?'

Gäut-chya's intuition had been, once again, accurate. Escape, indeed, of the worst possible kind. She tucked her fingers away, turned off the music, and thought things through. 'Id vould deveet yer purpoze az a woman, Billie Yenera.' As anticipated, Gäut-chya's sudden inclination to speak stifled Billie's sobs. Surprise took over.

Billie smirked to herself. 'They-they said you actually spoke . . . I didn't really believe it.'

'Dar iz nivur much poind in me spayking. I don'd . . . don'd like to do zo. My English iz nod gud.' In two weeks of freedom, Gäut-chya hadn't bothered altering her English phonetic programming. She understood English perfectly, from the Bible to e.e. cummings; she just couldn't _speak_ it well. It was low on her list of things to do.

Billie sat upright, the aiding Gäut-chya doing what she could with her stubby, fingerless hands. The woman touched her stomach, sniffled, dried her eyes and nose on a dripping wet blouse, and tried to come to terms with what happened.

'I feel sick inside,' Billie confessed to this strange creature. 'I'd rather die than be here.'

'You need tovel for drying yerzelf. You ard vet.'

'Leave it to a carnoid to state the obvious,' mumbled Billie. She jumped to her feet when a boxy yet recognisable shape rose out of both Gäut-chya's forearms, a hydraulic and a laser.

Gäut-chya armed and went defensive. She stepped in front of Billie Jenera, protecting her. She scanned the pathway from the dock to the house, through the underbrush and trees. 'Day ard kummink.' She chanced a glimpse at Billie Jenera. 'You zhud not av made zuch foolizh attemd ad ezkape.'

'I'll be sure to keep that in mind,' Billie snarled, 'next time I'm kidnapped by an anti-tech organisation.'

'Zday quiet,' Gäut-chya commanded. 'Keep beyind me.'

Two low-ranking soldiers appeared from the underbrush then, firing useless blasters the carnoid's direction. Golden beams ricocheted off her outer shell and deadened. Gäut-chya pumped off two hydraulic shots at the culprits. After two distinct male grunts the shots stopped. Quiet came again to the world, and Gäut-chya heard the whispering ocean. She scanned the trees, weapons at the ready, internal scope sight on. She detected faint, mobile heat sources off to her left twenty degrees. Almost for the fun of it, she fired at the heat sources. Too much debris lay between her and the target, and the shots hit nothing. Several more heat sources were detected. Gäut-chya knew it'd be helpless to fire against all of them.

She folded up her weapons and put them away. Her shoulders straightened in dignity. She watched Billie Jenera. Then, in a second, not sure what had made her do it, she covered herself in a hologram. Billie found herself no longer staring at the strawberry red shell of a carnoid, but at a pale, round face of a forty-eight-year-old woman, with black and pink hair, classic outfit, and odd violet eyes brimmed in green.

'I am zorry,' Gäut-chya said, meaning it, to the poor woman. 'Day ard too many. I cannod zave you.'

Billie's eyes filled with tears. Her head bowed and her countenance buckled. Gäut-chya understood why she'd changed into her hologram. It was better to hear of defeat from a human face with some expression than a rigid shell of titanium. With victory a destroyed dream, Gäut-chya remained in a protecting stance in front of Billie. She had this position when her boss showed from the verdure, flanked on his side by the doctor and Titus Sweete, along with all of Sweete's island cronies.

'This is an interesting and rather unpleasant situation,' the boss declared, mainstay Cuban burning between his fingers. His eyes were fixed on Gäut-chya but it was Sweete he spoke to. 'Are you paying attention to this, Titus? Witness it: this ignominious transformation of a carnoid _back_ to a synthoid.'

Gäut-chya understood his meaning, while it was nearly evaporated on a silly sloth like Titus Sweete.

'Zhe needs to live,' Gäut-chya proclaimed.

The boss tilted his head in mock sympathy. 'What generous notions are imbuing your chips today, sweetheart! Why should I let her live? It's obvious she isn't meant to join us, as I'd initially hoped.'

'Zhe iz wid child.' Gäut-chya stepped eagerly forward, unsure how she must look to this ream of soldiers and powerful triumvirate with insipid ideals. But never mind that now. Something else mattered, like life. Something more than her duty. There was, then, something more than duty. 'If you kill er, zo will er unborn child die.'

'I agree it is inhumane,' the boss said in typical, light, nonchalant tone. He stuck the stogy between his lips and curved them upward to a grotesque caricature of a smile. 'And certainly I wouldn't _dream_ of killing a pregnant woman myself. But isn't that what robots are for, the defeat of human morality? It's time to find out if it's men who kill other men, or if it's the synthoids obeying men's commands that kill. Eta, would you please dispose of Ms Jenera?'

Not even Gäut-chya was fast enough to stop the bullet from whizzing through the air, straight through her left shoulder, and hit the woman behind her. Gäut-chya twisted as she heard Billie Jenera thump against the dock. A two-inch red circle stained the damp blouse over a stilled heart. Gäut-chya fell to her knees, feeling heavy very suddenly, as if stuck in a stronger gravity pull than Earth. In her hologram, she had hands shaped as a human's, with some sense of objects to the haptic hologram, and she could feel the solidity of Billie's shoulder. How quickly it always ended…

Her cranium snapped back as a wire rope lassoed around her neck. Dragged across the dock, legs kicking, she didn't stop until in the sand. Finally able to access the appropriate internal weapon, a wire-cutter, she snipped the lasso from her neck. She bolted upright, sweeping around to face the culprit. It was the man who'd fired the shot that killed Billie Jenera. Gäut-chya switched her eyesight and searched the man in holo-view. As suspected, beneath the colourful light and element sheath was the solid outline of a very imposing synthoid.

'Gäut-chya,' the boss gestured to the dark-skinned gunman at his side, 'there's someone—er, do excuse me, I mean some_thing_—I'd like you to meet.'

Gäut-chya stared. Was there no way out of this quagmire? Truly no way of escape? No one to help her? She felt sick with her lonesome self, standing in front of this fortress with its armed knights and corrupt kings. What a wretched thing to be on one's own…

The gunman's hologram dissolved in white, yellow and blue. She heard it expand its arms, legs, head, and torso. Before her now stood a titanium synthoid in neutral hues, simplistic in design, boxy in shape, with two narrow diamond-shaped eyes above a wormy protrusion in the middle of its too-small head. It bowed to her slightly.

The boss removed his Cuban to finalise the introduction. 'Gäut-chya, I'm proud to introduce you to Eta, Infiltration Unit Seven, previously of the Department of Defence. Eta, this is Gäut-chya, former carnoid, now made synthoid by her inability to adhere strongly to initial programming.'

'You should have listened to yourself,' Eta said to her, voice deep and staccato. 'You cannot be who you are not meant to be.'

'That's enough, Eta,' the boss said. 'I'm not so sure that Mr Sweete here is interested in hearing the philosophy of robots.'

Sweete twitched and mumbled agreement, wherein every other word was a swear.

'Gäut-chya knows that she is less than she was yesterday,' added the boss with a sly snicker. 'It's all downhill from here, Gäut-chya. You do realise this, don't you, sweetheart? It starts out by caring for one human, then another human, then something else, someone else, and soon all things are connected by invisible strands of humility. And there is no escape from the environs of humanity once you accept it, and once it accepts you. I believe it was dear prophet James, New Testament guy, that wrote 'Get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.' You have to save yourself, Gäut-chya. Be very mindful of your steps in the future, sweetheart, or you may find yourself with more enemies than friends. And souls in robots are, from what I've heard, very uncomfortable, cumbersome things. No one will ever hire you for any trivial job ever again. You'll be tainted, sweetheart, a synthoid with a soul, an angel and a beast melded into one very pitiable being. And where would that leave you?'

He walked away before answering, commanding the soldiers to take care of Billie Jenera's body. It would be transported by boat over to the feeding grounds of the sharks and released. Gäut-chya remained while the men lifted Billie and took her away.

She slipped to the edge of the dock, her legs kicking out back and forth again. The same music station played. The song was one she remembered, and she hummed along. The waves lapped at the beach, with the tide coming in. The translucent moon hung as a three-quarter vapid circle low in the south-western sky, thirty-three degrees above the watery horizon. She remained alone on the dock, contemplating what the boss had said, his accusatory words and hapless prediction of her future.

Where would she be at the end of all this?

Somehow she knew the answer. It did not bring her comfort, but it brought understanding. A soul would, after all, place her immortal self in the same juxtaposition as all mortals: between Heaven and Hell.

_I can live with that_, she thought to herself, then took another dive into the ocean's inviting watery world. _But how long must I wait before I get there?_


	18. Name

18) Name

Today was the first full day that Agent Rush was to be part of Task Team 425-CSF. And she was eager for it to begin, having heard so much of this infamous task team and its nearly impossible chase of a renegade Infiltration Unit. Poignantly could she recall her interview with Colonel Lemak, secondary interview with Lemak and General Logsdon himself, along with the entire panel of directors out of Colorado Springs: Hattie, Stamper, Culpeper, Goubeaux. . . Though it was nice to have faces put with the names, it was better still to be sitting behind the desk formerly owned by Agent Marcia Lee. Here Rush could finally put her skills to the test. As well as her patience. She'd been told to expect problems, particularly from Agent West. He was not known to be light on his feet or quick in brains. Instead, he was 'meticulous if not tediously slow-paced in his methods and manoeuvres', so said Director Stamper, one of Orrin West's Beyond Level heroes. 'But he is capable, and a good agent when it matters.' Karen Rush began to doubt this within the first ten minutes of West's odd company in their little third-floor office.

When she arrived, he was already there. Behind his desk he sat in green shirt and grey suspenders, munching on an onion bagel with cream cheese. Beside him was a bottle of juice and a paper takeaway sack. He appeared to be reading his computer, probably the news.

He bobbed his head to her and swallowed the rest of the bagel bite. 'Hey, Rush. Here,' he tossed the takeaway sack at her, 'I got you some breakfast.'

She caught it and took it with her to the desk. 'Thanks. What is it?'

'Cream cheese Danish.'

Taking it out from the tissue wrapping, Karen sniffed it. It smelled pretty good. But first she poured herself some coffee, made by West in their in-office pot, then leaned into the edge of her desk, facing his. This act would soon become a regular morning routine for them. Strange to think of this weird twenty-four-year-old, with his weird first name—was anyone actually named Orrin anymore?—being part of one of the toughest task teams ever assembled. And by toughest, Karen didn't mean just physically and mentally. As much as they were discussed through the NSA, so were their interpersonal problems. And the topic of most gossip came from Agent West. In the NSA less than a year, and he gets hired to chase one of the most formidable opponents. Why? And how? A great mystery to all.

'I don't know what Bennett has planned for the day,' West started. 'It's been a while since we've been cleared to leave Colorado.'

Rush knew how long, too. She'd been given clearance to look through most of the Zeta case file, ZP-006 of 425-CSF. Yes, it was true that someone of a higher Level had gone through and blackened out the more significant details, things that no one else but those of Level 9 and the Beyond Levels were to know, but Karen got the gist of it. The last time Bennett and West had left Colorado, with a reluctant Marcia Lee, who'd already resigned, was to chase Zeta through the central plains states, then clear out to Nevada. Needless to say the three-day hunt ended with the NSA once again empty-handed and amply humiliated. And this had happened at the beginning of the month, and it was already August eighteenth. Rush contemplated that it must've felt peculiar for two agents, so commonly on the go, to spend so much time in one place. Bennett, a family man with one son, wouldn't mind. But West, unsurprisingly single, had a restless, youthful quality about him.

'Well,' said Rush, 'I guess we'll just wait and see what Agent Bennett wants to do today.'

West shrugged and polished off the bagel. 'Yeah, well, sometimes it isn't up to him.'

'Sometimes it's up to Zeta, too.'

'There's that, yeah—but I meant more,' he halted and watched her, 'the directors, actually. We don't always fly off the moment Zeta's spotted. We still have to be _told_ we can leave.'

Rush conceded; she knew this already. This perplexity, discrepancy, she'd been brave enough to bring up to the interview panel in Washington last week. 'What time does Agent Bennett usually arrive in the office?'

No sooner had she asked this question than their office door slipped aside and in walked the agent himself.

West tilted into his reclining swivel chair and laced his fingers behind his head. 'About now. Good morning, sir. Did you have a fine weekend?' West's words trailed off. Bennett's shoulders slumped as soon as he walked in. 'What's wrong?'

'Slag it,' Bennett spat bitterly. He looked at Agent Rush, then to West, and said not a word for a solid ten seconds. West analysed this movement and divined its meaning.

'Her office is upstairs now, sir,' spoke up West, thinking he was valiant with his assumptions. 'Sixth floor. In the corner. Name's on the door. You can't miss it.'

'Um,' Bennett stalled, nearly embarrassed to be caught making such a huge mistake, 'wait right here, the two of you, we'll have our briefing as soon as I get back. Just,' he made an imposing gesture, 'wait here.'

West broke out laughing as soon as Bennett had gone and the door shut. Karen's eyes widened and she sipped her coffee to keep from commenting.

'This is going to be so much _fun_!' exclaimed West. He pumped his fists in the air, an act that titled his seat fully backward. He splashed across the carpet and the chair rolled over on him.

Karen snorted into her coffee.

James didn't know how he'd managed to make such a mistake. He slapped his forehead with the manila file folder as soon as he reached the elevator. It stopped on the next floor up to pick up the queuing Nicklas Culpeper. They greeted each other casually. Nick glanced at the floor selections and saw that Bennett was already going to floor six. Unusual. Agent Bennett never talked to the thugs. . . .

'Any word yet on when your newly assembled team will be leaving, Jim?' Nick thought it polite small-talk to ask. Many curious minds had been aching to know the same thing. And even a director like himself had heard naught of it in nigh two weeks. It must be happening soon.

'Not yet, Nick.'

'That's too bad. I'd think you guys would be getting kind of fidgety. It does the body badly to stay in one place too long. Don't you think? Too comfortable being at home. It's boring to be so sedentary. Oh, by the by,' he changed tactics and thoughts rapidly, 'I've just heard that Director Wellington has taken Number Seven off assignments for a while.'

'Really?' Bennett peered at Nick, an unassuming director with casualness and friendliness. He had nothing against Nick as an agent, but as a man the opinion differed. 'What for?'

They stepped out of the elevator and ambled down the same corridor. Agents of lower rank greeted them as they passed.

'Program realignment and upgrades. Good old Number Seven ought to be functioning again, new and improved, sometime within in the next ninety days. I'm sure Hattie will tell you this at your briefing this morning. But I thought I'd pass it along anyway.' Nick finally realised they were both heading to Marcia Lee's office. Quickly, Nick veered off with a farewell wave. 'I'm off this way. See ya, Jim!' But he backtracked and watched from a perch around the corner as Bennett entered Lee's office.

Agent Lee looked up from her computer and immediately removed her red-rimmed reading glasses. 'Have I missed something?' she enquired naturally. 'Did we have a meeting, Agent Bennett?'

'No, we didn't.' He stalked to the end of her desk and let the manila folder drop. It draped across the black keyboard. 'Look at that, would you? I had it sent to me from the El Paso Medical Examiner's office. But from what I understand, this is really _your_ thing. So a fat lot of good it's going to do me. Figured you should have it instead.'

Marcia was flipping through the autopsy papers of Irving Houston.

'Have a nice day, Agent Lee.'

Lee hit a button which slammed the door shut in Jim's face. Flipping around, his eyes narrowed against hers.

'Please,' she indicated the seat, 'sit down and explain this to me, would you, Agent Bennett?'

He hated their formality. It chilled him more than anything. But he did as suggested, to eager for her incisive conclusions. A handful of seconds later, and a despondent Marcia threw the file down.

'Dr Schilling couldn't find any indication of murder.' She damned it all and tossed off her glasses. 'I was really hoping I could figure this out.'

'It wasn't because he didn't try,' added Bennett. 'And you don't always have to figure out all hunches you come across, Lee. Some things inevitably slip through our fingers.'

'Not this,' she said, hushing her voice. It pained her more than Bennett could ever realise. Maybe he'd figured out, or had been told, that she was investigating the deaths of the scientist, but he certainly didn't know the extent of her forward-reaching hypotheses. 'Not this.'

'Well,' Bennett rose and tried not to sound as disappointed as she looked, 'it was a nice theory that just didn't pan out the way we hoped.'

'I cannot believe that these scientists are all dead from one giant coincidence falling from a clear sky,' cited Lee, incensed. Her hard work had, for once, reaped no reward. 'The world doesn't work like this, Agent Bennett, neither does our government—and you know it.'

With an unclaimed serenity, he tapped the control panel: the door slipped open. But he gave Lee an ambiguous, crooked smile across his shoulder. 'I suggest you return to what you know, Agent Lee. That's what I'm planning to do.'

Lee pursed her lips to keep from yelling at him. He wasn't her handler anymore, and while they weren't exactly reaching for the same professional goal, they still had an inextricable relationship.

'Jim! I'm glad I caught you!'

Lee raised her head as she heard Marceau Spencer's voice out in the hallway. By design, Bennett lingered under the lintel as Agent Spencer approached. Marceau's hands were poised in front of him, in plea and prayer, and his usually emotionless brown eyes were brimming in anxiety.

'Do you remember last month when I told you I'd found out that Zeta and that Rowen girl were always travelling to cities holding science conventions?'

It had seemed vastly unimportant at the time, but that was before they'd found out that thirteen of the Infiltration Unit scientists had died off. Bennett's shoulders stiffened.

'I remember.'

Marceau's excitement went up two notches, if not more. 'I've finally run through the list of invited guests—to find out if all the conferences had one specific, common guest—and I found one—one name—invited to all four of the different conventions where Rosalie Rowen and Number Six have been within seventy-five miles at the time of the convention.' He slammed the phrases together almost without stopping, too enthused to halt. But he did have to pause to breathe. 'I found it—the guy—the scientist—his name. I found out his name.

'I've found Dr Eli Selig.'

In the span of the following five minutes, Nick watched Marceau Spencer and Agent Bennett leave Lee's office, then depart the floor entirely. They were chattering to each other in animated voices, and Nick caught the important parts. He was finally forced to leave his spying point when three agents came down the opposing corridor. With a knock, he was inside Lee's office.

At her wide desk, she fumbled through the autopsy report placidly, only glancing at him to see who'd entered. Setting the report aside with a lengthy sigh, she broke into business.

'Seems that Zeta and the Rowen girl are after a man named Dr Eli Selig.'

Now Nick knew this already. He'd known it for weeks. Not conclusively, of course; none from Washington had ever confirmed the suspicions. 'This may be a step in the right direction—for Bennett and his team.'

Marcia comprehended the hidden insinuation. 'I know I'm not a part of it anymore, and I'm all right with that.'

He didn't really believe she was. 'Marcia, you know your first thirty days are always a time of observation and trial. If you decide you've made the wrong decision, or if your handler—in this instance Director Goubeaux himself—decided he made the wrong decision, then you can go back—'

'I won't be going back.' She had no other way of making this statement sound as adamant as she felt it. A fearful set of little earthquakes were set off inside her stomach, nervous flutters that jeopardised the professional career she'd slaved so hard for, given up so much for. 'If I can't make it here, Nick, then I can't make it in the NSA at all.'

'I'd say that's a wise notion. And I admire your bravery.'

She scoffed, 'I'm not so brave.' Her limp fingers were squeezed beneath his, then she was up, culled by his arms. She clung to him fiercely. 'I'm only giving myself till the end of October, time enough to prove that I'm right about Zeta. I told Director Goubeaux that already—but I didn't have the guts to tell anyone else. You don't—don't blame me, do you? I mean, for wanting to leave.'

Tenderly, he tucked hair behind her ear and held her the nape of her neck. 'No, Marcia, I don't blame you. If anyone should leave, it's you.'

'I-I had to make a choice,' she went on, desperate to explain to him. 'I couldn't stay and fight with Bennett anymore, and I know I can't stay and fight with all of the entire Department of Defence. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I know I'll drown if I stay here forever.' She pulled away and slipped her palms across her face. 'I wish I'd never come here! It was all a mistake! What good have I really done?'

Nick touched the top of her crown, where her black hair cascaded in a sleek waterfall. As she turned, his hand slipped to her cheek. He smiled at her a little, until she smiled back. 'I think you know what good you've done,' he said. 'And I think you've already made your choice.'

'I'm sorry, Nick.' She swallowed to bar a sudden feminine inclination to cry, sure that he was no longer indicating her choice of profession alone. Where did she belong? Not in Colorado—certainly there was no place for her. But not back in Delaware, either; she'd grown apart from it too much. She'd never felt so uncertain.

'Why? I'm not sorry.' Nick gave a demure laugh. 'I'm just a fool who wants you to be happy, Marcia. You have to do what you need to do. Right?'

Marcia nodded, albeit vaguely. Men had a different way of looking at things, even Communication Operatives. 'It's not so easy, you know.'

'Maybe,' he swooped in and kissed her cheek, 'and maybe not. Won't know unless you try. I'd better make myself scarce. I think you probably have a lot of work to do.'

Numbed, Marcia flopped to her chair as soon as Nick departed. The first thing she saw was the autopsy report on Irving Houston. Her mind scattered from woe to work, wondering what Zeta would make of the autopsy. Suppose she could leave it for him somewhere that he'd be able to find it? After ten minutes of searching through websites, Marcia found an appropriate forum and stuck the results there, done anonymously. If Zeta should happen to find it, perhaps while searching the net for Dr Eli Selig, then he'd reach is own conclusions on Irving Houston's death. Marcia had no existing doubt that Zeta was aware of the scientists' odd and occasional violent deaths. Why else would he have gone to Club Pierre, owned by Irving Houston's great niece and nephew? Why else had he and Ro spent so much time in Colorado? In California? In Gotham? If Zeta had gone after one scientist, he may go after the others. She'd need every one of their names by the end of the day, all the scientists of the Infiltration Unit Zeta team. Yet really only a single name mattered.

Marcia rubbed her brow, already spent and it wasn't even noon. The name kept running through her head: Selig . . . Selig . . . Selig . . .

'I don't know how this is going to end.' Her eyes inadvertently tripped on the photograph of her mother, lodged on a bookcase to the left of her desk. Mom, in her afterlife of wisdom and repose, would know. Now she had secrets, unable to share. The disembodied words trickled into Marcia's ear and hissed from between her lips.

'Maybe it'll never end.'


	19. Family

19) Family

Date: Monday, 19 August 2042  
Original notes: Zee Smith  
Compiled By: Zee Smith

The sun rose from its slumber across a pear tree grove, and I knew that in the immediate future the slips of pale fog were doomed. The birds chirped hellos and the pine trees whispered good mornings to each other. The golden light of morning was among one of my favourite sights in this wondrous world. And a wonder to behold when I witnessed it in the surroundings of intense nature. All around the wilds were waking. And my companions, Ro and Bucky, were also waking. I stood apart from their slumbering selves, my feet the width of my shoulders, my hands curved behind my back. I glanced at them, Ro's hand twitching to catch a lost dream, and Bucky slapping his eyes with his forefinger and thumb.

'It's really, really bright out here,' Bucky cursed.

He sat upright at the waist, hands behind him, fingers curled into the wool blanket draped across dewy, thick grass. His eyebrows lifted as he saw Ro next to him, and thought he'd better move before the easily impassioned teen witnessed his close proximity. Ro rarely relished the presence of Bucky, let alone stealing a nap within six inches. To his credit, Bucky had been awake most of the night, explaining things to me. Ro, also to her credit, slept while the sun slept, with only fits of waking here and there, lasting not longer than a moment. Once she asked me where we were, and I told her, but I doubted it calculated properly. She'd ask me the same whenever her eyes opened and heretofore unspecified environs witnessed.

It did not take as long as I'd initially supposed. The nitrous oxide had been removed from her system forty minutes after taking it over, but tiredness and the hour caught up with her, and the gas caused her to sleep on. Now it was removed, and as her eyes opened I saw she was refreshed. Perhaps it had done her more good than harm.

She woke as if startled, dragging her breath in and getting to her feet. Then she saw Bucky and me, and her hands fell. 'Oh, right. Oceanside. Cow. Moo. Car. I remember now. One of you guys like to tell me what's going on? And where are we?'

'Dixon Lake,' I responded, already prepared. 'It's some distance east of Oceanside.' My inclination to speak the actual distance in miles was voided. Ro disliked it when I 'showed off', unless it was required. 'We thought we might be safe here.'

Bucky stretched a tense, aching shoulder. He grimaced as he spoke. 'Man, do I miss my bed . . . Safe for a little while, anyway, Ro, until I had enough time to tell you what's going on.'

'What _is_ going on? Who was that guy that came after us?'

'I don't know,' Bucky said.

'I don't know,' I said, following Bucky. 'While the two of you slept, I tried to make a representation of him in my hologram. Would you like to see?'

Neither of them were eager for the display. I shifted on my feet.

'Never mind, then. Bucky, would you like to do the honours?'

'Not particularly.' He leaned into me. 'What if she doesn't like what I say? She could, like, beat me up or something.'

'Why wait?' queried a rude Ro. She grabbed Bucky's shirt collar in a fist. 'Zee never bothered to tell you I'm really cranky in the morning. So why don't you get on with telling me what you know.'

I set my hands against her shoulders, and, eventually, she released Bucky. He, however, appreciated Ro's assertiveness and smirked kindly at her.

'Whatever you say, Ro.' He paraded around aimlessly then chose to sit on the bench. Ro pointed a toe and folded her arms, a demonstration of mounting impatience. Bucky cleared his throat and started. 'Do you remember Dr Tannor, Ro?'

'The Dr Tannor that tried to steal your remote control?'

'That's the one.'

'But you got him back. He was asked to leave Sorben—'

'Oh,' sang Bucky, 'the sweet, sweet lyric of vengeance.'

'What happened to him?'

'He disappeared for a while,' Bucky said. 'Then I found him again on an internet site. Someone had seen him.'

'Where?'

'One guy saw him in Washington, as in Columbia, District of, as in US government homestead. And another guy saw him at a tiny airport in the Caribbean.'

'The Caribbean?' she repeated.

'The area north of South America.'

'I know where the Caribbean is!' she shouted.

He held up his hands in surrender. 'All right, Ro, calm down.'

'I meant,' she sighed to reduce her frustration, '_what_ was he _doing_ there?'

'Well,' he got up and reached for his brown leather satchel, big like a briefcase, and brought out his computer, 'it took some serious digging into some surveillance satellites in orbit over the Caribbean, but I was able to find something.' He turned the laptop around on his knees so Ro could see the screen. Ro surveyed a map of an overhead photographic view of a tiny, rather 'C'-shaped island. The water around it was blue, the sandy shore white, the centre doused in shades of green, and the roof of a mansion done in red Spanish tiles. 'This island is an integral part of a massive load of communication waves. They go in and out of this island like crazy. I stole this image yesterday from a satellite belonging to MARtech, a robotics company based out of New City.'

'New City,' Ro repeated flatly, 'as in the New City northeast of Gotham.'

'The same. And since then, I've been tracking the island's communications. I can't hear anything, but I do know there's a lot going on here.' He glanced at me. 'A whole lot.'

'Ro,' I attempted to surmise what Bucky had said so far, 'Bucky believes this island is part of Brother's Day.'

'Oh. Wonderful.' It quieted her. But I hadn't finished yet.

'And Bucky has reason to believe that Dr Tannor has somehow been lured into working for Brother's Day.'

Ro's eyes widened. She fanned her face. 'I need to sit down.' She chose the blanket on the grass. While she stared into space, ruminating on what we'd brought up so far, she did not seem shocked or appalled. She folded thin legs beneath her, hands over ankles.

'This isn't good.'

'At least you've already told her what Brother's Day is,' Bucky said to me. I had no response. Ro knew a little about my past, about as much as I knew of hers.

'Ro?'

She recognised my tone of voice. Her hand twiddled. 'I'm fine, Zee.'

'Then you won't mind my telling you that Billie Jenera and her husband are missing.'

She massaged her temples. This may very well be information overload, but Ro could handle it, made of tougher stuff than most. 'Are they dead?'

'I'm unable to confirm that,' I said.

'But you suspect they are.'

'I do suspect it.'

'Great,' she mumbled.

I tapped Bucky on the shoulder. He continued.

'I met someone in Oaxaca Friday, Esperanza Ortenegerra. Her father did some contract work for the US government three years ago.'

Ro peeled open an eye and shined it on him. How could three years ago affect the present?

'Ro, you don't get it,' Bucky chuckled, also sensing her question. 'The NSA were already designing Infiltration Units three years ago. Esperanza's father, Perico Ortenegerra, helped develop the software necessary for a robot's sense of gravity and equilibrium. It's why I can do this to Zee and not have him fall off balance.' We made the demonstration then: Bucky pushed me on the upper arm, and I tilted but corrected myself. Bucky opened his hand. 'See?'

Ro huffed and shielded her eyes again.

'Anyway,' continued Bucky, 'Perico drowned this past spring. Maybe Zee already told you this.'

She threw me a contemptuous, purely Ro Rowen look. Of course I hadn't told her yet. I was building my way up to it, and just ran out of time. For immortal beings always did run out of time, in the end. I stopped myself from thinking when it would be our turn, when Ro and I, a collective, a unit, would run out of time.

'And Esperanza told me her father had been visited by US military men not long before he died. She even witnessed one of the meetings, with this guy,' he gestured to me and I immediately changed into a hologram.

Ro arched an eyebrow, then lowered it questioningly. 'Who's he?'

'My name is Major Eric Valos,' I said, in the voice I remembered of the original Eric Valos, as much as I could recall of him. 'I work for the United States government as a multi-agency liaison.'

'Oh, that guy,' Ro grumbled. 'Did you kill Perico Ortenegerra then?'

'Negative, but a bullet from my gun was found at the Ortenegerra residence by Perico Ortenegerra's daughter.'

'Interesting,' drawled Ro. She watched Bucky as he held up the bullet. 'And where's Esperanza now?'

'I sent her back to Mexico,' said Bucky. 'She followed me all the way back to Sorben and asked me to look into it, her father's death. I promised I would, but only if she went back to Mexico. She's safer there.'

I let the hologram go and returned to a shape more familiar to both of my friends. The weight and shape of Zee Smith was my favoured avatar as well. 'As would you be, Bucky, if anyone else becomes aware that you know these things.'

'Nah,' he dismissed. He clicked keys on the keyboard and I could only guess what illegal act he was committing at that moment. 'No one's going to find out. But it's true,' he darted an intense glare to me, 'that I have my plans ready if something should happen. I won't tolerate being taken by surprise, not from the NSA or anyone. Looks like the NSA is on to this whole thing, too. They've flagged Billie Jenera's name from wires of the Bloomington PD.'

'How can you tell it's the NSA?' Ro fished around his bag to find one item she knew would be there, a bottle of water. She sipped while he replied.

'They're using special calling cards.' He threw a look at her. 'Aliases. Hackers like me come to know these things. I know the NSA's methods.' He snapped his fingers: Ro put the bottle of water in his palm. He slurped some and gave it back to her. 'This whole thing is going a lot deeper than either of you should be dealing with right now. I think you'd better leave it alone. And back off. Seriously back off.'

'But if the NSA knows—' I started and Bucky interrupted.

'I think that's why you should leave it alone. Look,' he set the laptop aside so his attention had nowhere else it could go, 'if the NSA are searching for Billie Jenera, and Dr Tannor is missing, and Eric Valos is involved, then that means the majority of the NSA have no idea what's going on. They're as clueless as we are.'

Ro was able to pick up the meaning before I was. Not entirely unheard of, but rare. 'So you're saying that if the NSA doesn't know, that means Valos is involved in something that's above the NSA's head—literally.'

'That's right. And imagine just how many things are above the NSA.' He glanced between us, our speechlessness our answer. 'We can't even begin to comprehend where something like this may lead. But I can tell you it's not good, and it's really, really dangerous.' He leaned into the bench and threw his elbows over the back, posed in arrogance. 'Dead scientists are one thing, but suppose someone above the NSA was killing off the scientists for a specific reason? Maybe the military knows something about the Infiltration Unit programme that they're not sharing. Maybe they're killing off the scientists to keep them from being kidnapped by other countries and having their knowledge used against them. Do you get what I'm saying? I'm saying this is _bad_. Apocalyptically _bad_.'

In the silence following this bold statement, I scanned Ro and she scanned me. As is our norm in these days, alike in mood and emotion, I knew her thoughts and she knew mine.

'All right, Bucky,' I said to him, 'we'll let it go.'

'_Cuadrado_ . . . perfect.' Bucky wiped his brow. 'No more hunting down dead scientists?'

'Not unless another one dies,' I spoke, foreshadowing events that not even I could imagine, to a year from now and all the time beyond, when we would finally run out of time. 'Or we figure out what this is leading to. Do you really think it involves Brother's Day?'

'I suppose it's got to,' Bucky answered quickly. 'Zee?'

'Yes?'

'What do you remember from your last infiltration? You were dealing with Brother's Day.'

This I had no problem answering. Bucky was someone who'd proven himself trustworthy. Ro may harbour her own qualms about him, but there were so few people Ro warmed up to immediately. Batman, for instance, she hadn't liked on the spot. Neither had Batman become instantaneous friends with Ro. And even I had my misgivings at the beginning, whether Ro would get along with my friends. Bucky was my friend before he was Ro's.

'I was trying to discover the name of an anonymous donor, giving large amounts of money to Brother's Day through Titus Sweete.'

Bucky bit his lip as he thought. 'That's very interesting. And you never found out who the donor was?'

'No.' My voice dripped in dismay. It was a painful regret. 'No, I never did. I had no way of doing it without compromising my identity as well as my connexion to the NSA.'

'How much money was it?'

I scanned the memories. It took me a moment to find them. Most of my older memories, from the last NSA-appointed infiltration, had been carefully encrypted. No one else should be able to access them easily except myself. And even then, there was a slight challenge. 'The first one was two point six million creds, with subsequent donations all over two million creds.'

Bucky whistled. Ro's mouth slacked a little.

'Who did you report to?' came Bucky's next question. 'I mean, who else knew you were looking for the anonymous donor? It must've been someone very high within the NSA.'

'At the time I reported only to Director Wellington.'

'Third in command, right?' Ro asked. The name faintly jogged discussions we'd had of my past, of the NSA. Ro knew almost as much about the NSA as Bucky and I. 'He's got to know about the dead scientists. Maybe he's still tracking Brother's Day.'

'That's possible,' I acknowledged. 'There is another Infiltration Unit able to pick up where I left off in my investigations.'

'Eta,' Ro murmured with a shudder passing across her spine. 'It I've heard of. They won't actually do that, will they? Send Eta to investigate Brother's Day.'

'It's doubtful, but possible.'

'Anything's possible,' Ro said, stretching. She fell, back to the blanket, and draped a forearm across her eyes. 'Hey, Buckminster?'

'I shouldn't even answer to that. What, Rosalie?'

'Heh,' she was momentarily proud of his kicking comeback, 'what about that guy that came after us, Harris Harcourt?'

'I was able to find some information on him. He works for PIUE.'

PIUE, it's what she'd read online as being 'Peewee'. 'Which is?'

'Principal Intelligence of United Éireann. It's kind of like the NSA, except with far fewer attempts at being so hush-hush. Ever heard of MI6?' He didn't wait for a response. 'Kind of like that, too, except not run by the English—just the Irish. And, honestly, for the life of me, I can't figure out what in the world the Irish government wants you for, Ro. Do you have some kind of dodgy past with the IRA that you haven't bothered to share yet? Sure there isn't something you want to, er, tell me?'

She laughed, a lilting, silvery thing that always reminded me of calla lilies dancing in streams of summer moonlight. 'Well, I _am_ Irish, Bucky.'

He tossed his head to her, quizzical, doubting. 'Says who?'

'Says—well, just look at my name. Rosalie. Rowen. Isn't that pretty Irish?'

Bucky frowned, showing it to me briefly. 'I guess.'

'More Irish than Buenaventura, anyway.'

'You've got me there. So what would they want with you? I mean, just because your last name is Irish doesn't mean _you're_ Irish. You look and sound pretty American to me.' Actually, he was looking at her legs, and she had lovely, slender legs. He didn't suppose any Irishwoman could have nicer stems than that. 'If you want me to, Ro, I can look into it for you. But I don't think Harris Harcourt will bother you anymore.'

'I don't care.' Her imagination was taking hold again, and she flew willingly out on its unfurled wings. Wouldn't it be lovely to know what she was? All she knew was an instinct of sorts, that she wasn't from California, and somewhere she had a brother named Casey. 'Casey is an Irish name, too.'

Bucky had worrisome, silent pleas in his eyes. To this broken maunder of Ro's consanguinity, I didn't know what to say.

'Ro?'

'What, Zee?' She lifted her head and watched me with steady, pearly blue eyes that almost matched the hue of the empyrean, and almost as deep.

'Are you sure you don't want Bucky to look into it? He can, you know—or we could do it ourselves. I mean, if the IRA—'

Bucky laughed. 'Just listen to that! The IRA, looking for Ro Rowen—ten years after the war! It's the _P-I-U-E_, Zee, that's looking for her.'

I went on, undaunted, 'Or whomever is after you is, well, after you for a reason—'

'Let's just forget about it.'

She didn't particularly care. Still strong in her was the hurt of being orphaned in the first place. Who knew what her mother had been thinking, letting her children go? Was Casey with her? And couldn't Ro make us understand her inclination of disinterest? Did this phase of disinterest connect with my desperate attempts to contact Dr Selig? This was a valid point. . . .

_I_ was more important. _My_ family had to be found _first_.

Suddenly I understood what she'd said about the selfishness of love, and was smote by the pain she must have dealt with all her life. Yet there she was, her first thought not of herself or the thin ropes dangling from the suspicious appearance of PIUE. She wished to find Selig as much as I did. That was her purpose. If certain valuable information on Ro's family ties were uprooted as we stepped along, they would be heeded but not answered above our united duty to find Selig.

'What happened to Harris Harcourt? Did that guy get him?'

Ro's enquiry wasn't immediately answered. Bucky and I stumbled between ourselves for who would give the repugnant response. Finally, Bucky spoke.

'There was an unidentified body of a young man found outside Oceanside some ways. The text news didn't say much about how he died, and they weren't releasing his identity. But I'm guessing it's probably our Harris Harcourt.'

'I guess that guy did get him.' She ran a hand through her dishevelled hair. 'What do we do now, Zee?'

'We're going to keep looking for Selig.' The idea was charming in its minimalism. Ro had hoped that I would eagerly return to our common road. The temporary distraction had been done. Many more may be ahead, and we would face them as they came. 'And then we're going to find your brother, and find out what happened to your mother and father.'

'Let's start with Selig first, okay?'

I nodded acceptance. She preferred believing the plans were traditionally her idea, under her supervision, under her domination. Whether or not they fully were was debatable.

Bucky needed his quip. 'Great. So what you're saying, Ro, is that I'm all the family you need, right?'

Ro found a mouldy pear in the grass, within her reach, and threw it at Bucky. It scattered in smelly, moist bits as it met his deflecting hand. He snarled, then laughed. Ro shouted that he was detestable worm that now, at least, finally smelled like one, too.

Maybe we were all the family Ro needed. And yet they were not quite enough for me. But I had them to help, to guide, to plaster a void in my life. This was, insomuch as I had learned through the last year, much more than some families possessed. For Bucky and Ro, and all the friends I had made on my travels, I would be forever grateful.


	20. Generosity

20) Generosity

_September 2042_

She found him at an expensive bed and breakfast in downtown Stratford-Upon-Avon. Never, in all the years that they'd known each other, had he been very difficult to find. They'd been through a lot, speeding through life on dangerous, precarious footpaths, often trod separately but with one always following just a few paces behind. And she'd been the one, this time, to walk ahead. True to their symbiosis, she was to help _him_, and then they would be even—until the next menace came along.

Dawn was hours away, and the small sleeping quarters were dark. Some faint street illumination slipped in the crack between the drapery panels, enough to see the face of her friend, and the outline, on the opposite side of the bed, of her companion. She gave him a nod. The hood covering his profile nodded back. Without a sound, he brought out a thin-bladed epee, ancient from blade to hilt, and held the point to the sleeper's neck. She released a scimitar from a sheath at her back, till it, too, was pointed at the sleeper's neck.

'Good morning, Mr Desjardins.' Her raspy, whispering tone barely carried, but it would be enough to awaken an assassin from his light slumber. Assassins never really slept; they closed their eyes, 'perchance to dream'.

The two swords kept at his neck as he rose his head to peer at them. He blinked sleep from his eyes, snorted, then let his head drop back. This was unimpressive.

'Don't you know better than to point that blasted sword at me?' He looked at the void under the hooded figure. 'Both of you!' He flew up and touched the light panel next to the bed. The room turned golden and obscurity fled. Sword blades glistened, too near for comfort but not near enough to harm. He was annoyed, more than anything, to be woken at three-thirty in the morning. Yawning and itching the top of his head, where dark hair came out in uncombed tufts, he glanced between them. Then, finally, with their intense silence offering nothing useful, he dropped his hands and huffed.

'What's this all about? Breakfast in bed?'

The scimitar remained at its deadly spot, but its wielder brought up her other arm, already holding a Reader. She held the screen his direction and hit 'PLAY'.

He sat through a ninety second newscast out of a local Chicago affiliate, describing, in miniscule detail, the recovery of a body from Lake Michigan. The body of Logan Burne.

She hit 'STOP' when the newscast ended. Her arm dropped but her sword remained. 'Did you kill him?'

'I love it when you're straight to the point. No pun intended.' With a vigorous rub to his face, some trivial moaning to gather his thoughts, he felt more awake and able to answer. He looked straight at her, the light brown eyes appearing between a sliver in a masking dark grey hood. 'No, Curare, I didn't kill him. And I didn't kill Harris Harcourt, either. Satisfied?'

The epee flickered. 'Then you know who did,' came from the second, less masking hood. With the lights on, the man's proboscis a highlighted line, and a faint glare caught in his eyes. 'Tell us.'

'What business is it of yours?' Mr Desjardins glanced between them. 'Either of you? Look,' he spoke mainly to Curare, 'it's nice that you've dropped by to check up on me and all, but I'm really just fine. A little tired, but just fine.' His neck stretched as both sword points snuggled against his skin. He gulped. 'What are you going to do, Curare, threaten me to death? After all our years together, this is how you want me to die? You've saved my life a few times, and I've saved yours. Why kill me now? And you!' He looked now at the boy. 'If it wasn't for me you'd be dead on a mountaintop in Spain, so don't you be pointing that thing at me! Trying to be all ominous now, I see! In your—your Grim Reaper hood and your carefully chosen company!' He poked his forehead to indicate Curare.

Incensed, the kid brought down his hood, revealing sheaves of wiry black hair that fell far below his shoulders, a slim goatee, and eyes almost the same colour as Curare's, an illumed golden brown. 'She asked me to be here.'

'Oh! Isn't that wonderful! A blasted reunion!' He sat back and folded thewy arms tightly over his white t-shirt. His blue eyes blazed. 'This is just like old times! So how is the Society of Assassins treating you these days, Curare? And you, Pepito? Huh?'

Pepito shoved the blade right under Mr Desjardins's nose. 'Do quiet yourself, Mr French. I mean, Mr Desjardins. Mr Banks. Mr Sykes. What name _are_ you using right now?'

'Don't you _dare_ patronise me! You don't even _have_ a name!'

'_¡Corta! ¡Corta! ¡Ahora!_' Curare held out her hand across the bed, indication for Pepito to lower his sword. 'I want you to tell me what you know, Sully.'

'It's Noah Desjardins right now,' he said pointedly to Pepito. Then he relaxed, hands behind his head, ankles crossed. 'I don't have the faintest notion who this Sully French is you speak of, Curare. Nor do I have any idea what you want me to tell you. What do I know about _what_, exactly? You never have been keen on specifics. With you, Curry my dear, it's always just swipe, swipe, swipe, kill, kill, kill, run, run, run. It's _very_ tiresome.'

Curare leaned upward, straightening broad, muscular shoulders, her blue skin hidden behind a full grey cloak. The sword was tucked away at her back. Her six-foot frame sat rigidly on the edge of the bed. 'Pepito.'

He made the same motions of disarmament.

'You need a bath, Pepito,' remarked Sully. '_Oler de la basura._'

Pepito made a sarcastically amused face. He chose the horsehair antique chair in the corner of the room for his vigil. 'Maybe he doesn't know anything,' he said to Curare, speaking his native Mexican-Spanish. With elbows on leather-covered knees, his hands wrapped under his chin, he looked too young to be sitting beside two assassins beyond his years in age and experience.

'What I want to know,' Mr Desjardins said to Curare, 'is why you even care about someone like Logan Burne.'

'I want to know what he was doing on Sweete's island.'

'The one in the Caribbean?'

Pepito snickered. 'How many islands do you think he owns, _No-ah_.'

Mr Desjardins growled Pepito's direction. 'I don't know what Burne was doing there. Maybe Sweete was having a meeting.'

'Burne is a member of UIFF,' Pepito said.

'Ex-member,' corrected Mr Desjardins. 'Rather like how we're all ex-members of the Society. _¿Correcto?_'

Curare raised her wrapped hand to silence both of them, even though Pepito had only opened his mouth for retort. 'He wasn't the only member at Sweete's that weekend to wind up dead. I went to the house. It looks like he's planning something.'

'You went to the island? You rummaged through Titus Sweete's _house_! Curare!' He seemed to remember he was talking to the last metahuman member of the Society of Assassins.

'He wasn't home or anything,' interceded Pepito. 'We came straight here to see if you knew what Brother's Day is up to.'

'Not a clue,' he said. 'And I don't bloody care! Have I ever given you an indication that I _care_? _Mon dieu_, I ruddy well hope I have _not_.'

'You know anti-tech terrorism well,' said Curare. 'I thought you might have heard something from one of your . . . acquaintances.'

'Well, I haven't, okay?'

Inches of silence fell. The room congested with it.

Pepito's twitching knee finally stopped as he glanced between Curare and the man he'd always known as Sullivan French. 'Don't make her do it, Sully, because you and I both know she really, really wants to.'

Mr Desjardins winced and flinched. He flicked his wrist dismissively. 'Even if she did suck my brain for knowledge, it's not like she'd _find_ anything.' He tilted towards her. 'I don't know anything!'

'You were in America.'

'I went to America for business that is absolutely _none of yours_. Curare, I don't have to tell you _everything_. Some parts of my life are still my own. _Merci beaucoup_.'

Curare remained calm and steady. 'Give me a name, Sully. Just one name. It is all I ask.'

Mr Desjardins glimpsed Pepito. The kid shrugged to show indifference. Mr Desjardins cracked some knuckles on his left hand, stretched his shoulders, weighed and measured the circumstances quietly to himself, then cleansed his senses with a deep sigh. 'All right . . . All bloody right. I may have heard one or two mutters here and there about Brother's Day picking up some thermo devices in South Africa last month. I don't know what they're going to do with them, but it's not like they used them to celebrate Bastille Day.'

'How many?' she enquired, saving all this to memory.

'Never heard an exact number, but I judged it to be a lot. And by a lot I mean upwards of two hundred.'

Pepito nearly choked, so enormous was the number. 'You could blow up all of Mexico City with that many.'

'Well, genius,' he scoffed at Pepito, 'I doubt they're going to use them all at once. But I know they finalised the purchase and have been actively transporting them to different Day facilities throughout the world.'

'How?'

Again, he sighed. He really had to get out of the information business. At least he didn't mind telling Curare, she who was one of his better friends. And for two assassins, that was saying quite a lot. 'In mid-August the US Navy lost a submarine.'

'Lost?'

'As in it was commandeered.'

Curare nodded. 'And Brother's Day, thinks you, commandeered it.'

'No, no, not necessarily. I think it was commandeered by someone from the navy and then _sold_ to Brother's Day. That's the only way the whole thing makes sense. And considering we're talking about the US government here, er, intellect sometimes is a little . . . indistinct.'

Her eyes involuntarily narrowed at this conjecture. 'Why you thinks this? You know something else, Sully. What?'

'Fine. . . . Sometimes I hate you, Curare! Fine!'

He was up from the bed and careening around the room. Curare stood with him, and he still enjoyed being taller than her. Pepito remained in the chair, unable to compare to the two assassins in height and brains. They'd been doing this longer than he'd been alive.

Mr Desjardins had his fingers in his hair, ruffling it up in frustration. Finally, both arms dropped. 'You want a name? I'll give you a name!'

Curare waited. She glanced at Pepito, he at her, then both looked at Mr Desjardins. He was steady, with fists clenched at his sides, the blue of his eyes still aglow with resentment and sparkling with intrigue. This moment, this taste of true power, was the meaning of all the dangers, the thrills, the near escapes, for him.

'Eric Valos.'


	21. Cyclical

21) Cyclical

October 2042

Agent Bennett had just stepped into West and Rush's office when, at his trail, a man in a black suit and sharp tie followed. So unnerved were the agents at the sight of Director Wellington, on his lonesome, that none could speak.

'Agent Bennett,' the director paused in the four foot space between the desks, square to the underling, 'I'd like a word.'

In rue and wonder, James bobbed his head first to West, who began removing his feet from the rim of the desk in motions to leave.

'Wait,' Wellington raised his briny, bumpy hand to the kid behind him, but did not let his stern glare leave Bennett, 'you needn't go. Stay, please, I entreat you both to hear this.'

West and Rush, across the room, looked at each other, suspicion brimmed. In the past sixty days of working together, they were already cultivating silent, glacial communication.

Then a lengthy stoppage in all movement and voice. Director Wellington's prominent nostrils flared, an aquiline nose set against darting cheekbones and a tight line of a long mouth. It barely parted as he spoke.

'I'm tired of coming out here, Agent Bennett.'

James had been wondering what to expect. Now that he knew it was admonitions galore, he creased his arms around his middle, wetted his lips, and waited it out. How long had it been since Director Wellington said his truculent, pleonastic obloquy, of how artfully they'd been failing?

'Very tired of coming out here and cleaning up your messes. It was a sorry day when I allowed Director Stamper to put this task team together. I should never have been so narrow-minded, supposing this inutile team of yours could accomplish in six days what it's taken you fifteen months—and counting—to do. You were the least of my concerns; a man as respectable as yourself should have been able to accomplish the chore set before you. But to appoint that dreadful kid and that inadequate, pedestrian woman surely indicated some insensibility on your part, Agent Bennett.'

In the flare-up that followed, Bennett recalled little of what he said, only what he felt. He'd never been so angry at a director before. A second flashed through him, lightning quick, reminding him of frenzied brawls with Jo, and how she'd often cited the same things, 'the unreasonableness of it all…'

'That dreadful kid can hear every word you're saying,' Bennett remarked, 'and repeat it back to you in three different languages, tell by your intonations whether or not you're lying, can quantify your heart rate just by watching the pulse at your neck, and a deliver an accurate spit-ball right into your ear canal. So I'd be careful not to cross him—_sir_.'

West paled in his seat. He'd never heard Bennett speak so before, let alone to such a sanctimonious martinet like Director Wellington. Rather, West dearly wished to be kept from the whole conversation. But he was driven by a force greater than the pragmatic practices the NSA instilled. 'Do think twice before you say anything remotely disrespectful of Agent Lee, Director, within either earshot of myself or Agent Bennett. We do not take kindly to anyone who swears against her motivation, inspiration, or character.'

Director Wellington flipped towards West. His crooked finger was raised and he raked West with mean, glowing eyes. 'Hold your tongue, you vile, irresponsible good-for-nothing! You would be wise not to invoke my anger, Agent West. My anger can be the end of your NSA career . . . Such as it is.'

West allowed Wellington to win the round. The kid glanced away for a moment, felt Wellington's statements intensely, but nevertheless took hold of the director's empty eyes once more. Wellington turned, too appalled.

'Someone so young,' he quipped to the kid, 'should not be so eager to lose his footing in his business. Tread carefully, Orrin. _Very_ carefully.' Wellington straightened his tie and jacket. 'Agent Bennett, I suppose you are aware that I've initiated a plan to detract power from the Infiltration Unit Oversee Committee, and exponentially the Committee will evanesce, all in good time. Perhaps it is too late to do any good, but we shall see. No doubt you are aware of the failure of the Theta Project.'

Poised he stood, waiting for Bennett to confirm or deny this. No such thought crossed Bennett's mind. Wellington went on, undaunted.

'With only one functioning Infiltration Unit within the NSA's grasp, currently, I see no reason to carry on with it—as it has been. _I_ am taking over all Infiltration Unit projects that come along in the future. It will be different—and I guarantee that I will not need you to chase after any creation of _mine_ for the next year. And dare I announce that I don't think you will be needed to chase after Zeta, either, if I have much of my way in the next eighteen months. I _expect_ to see you and your team at the meeting this afternoon. Good day.'

He left, and James dropped his shoulders with a thin sigh. For a moment he rubbed his brow, digesting the director's antics and acumen.

'I'm sorry, West,' he finally said to the paled figure in the corner, hidden behind a black desk that just made him all the more white and small. 'He shouldn't have said those things about you.'

'Director Wellington never has liked me, sir,' said West. 'And what he said is true: I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Director Stamper's insistence.'

'His,' Bennett halted, 'and mine.'

West raised his eyes, a question in them.

'I wanted you on my team,' Bennett mumbled. 'I wouldn't have let Stamper put you here if I hadn't given my consent first. Same with Agent Lee. Same with Agent Rush. Karen?'

Now she was the one to pay attention. It was the first and probably the last time Agent Bennett would ever call her by her first name. 'Yes, er, Jim?'

'Was it my imagination, or did Director Wellington just invite us to the big meeting he's having this afternoon—me and my team?'

'Yes, sir. I heard the words from right out of his mouth.' Although she'd never say so, Karen always felt uneasy in Director Wellington's austere, provoking presence. At her second interview, he'd been uncharacteristically quiet, allowing Stamper to have his way, joined in opinion by Colonel Lemak. Suddenly she wondered if Wellington had done so for the sheer delight of some malicious inclination of his own invention. The director's curvilinear principles would rankle insidiously over the next long year.

'Good,' Bennett said. 'Then would you tell Agent Lee that I invite her to the meeting? I know Director Wellington won't want her there. He thinks her as useless as an umbrella on a sunny day.' He twisted at the shoulders to perceive his newest agent. 'Do you know where her office is?'

'Sixth floor, sir.'

'Room 616. Back corner. Lee always did deserve a corner office. I'd like to see Director Wellington take _that_ away from her,' he mumbled as he took leave.

The door slipped closed and Rush ogled her partner. West knew what she was thinking, he could almost see it as an apparition between them.

'I wash my hands of it,' he declared, voice aflame like the colour that'd come to his cheeks. 'You said, when I met you, that you knew why Agent Lee left, and I'm not saying anything! Nothing at all! I plead the Fifth!' He headed for the door, carting a banana and his favourite plaid-printed mug. 'Not a word! So don't you dare ask me! I don't know a thing about it!'

Left alone, Karen slumped over her desk. Maybe she'd been all wrong to start with. Was that even possible? Certainly this large Colorado field office was some great distance from Washington, and maybe things had become contorted in the proverbial grapevine. But to be completely wrong, she couldn't understand it. From what she'd seen, Agent Lee and Agent Bennett certainly didn't _hate_ each other with such a ridiculously visible poignancy, but seemed as amiable components, both unable to forget the other was in a different place. Karen was sorry to be disappointed. It would've been so much nicer to arrive in Colorado and _see_, with her own working peepers, this famous rift between two such capable agents, rather than this tenable, synergetic oddity that Rush had never witnessed, or ever thought possible between two such different yet intense people.

Lee was sitting at her desk when a knock came on the jamb of an already ajar door. She was rather startled to see Agent Rush. While they had been formally introduced, finally, Lee didn't even suppose Agent Rush knew the location of her office, let alone ever care to visit it.

'I'm sorry to interrupt,' Rush began.

'I'm not being interrupted. Is there something I can help you with, Agent Rush?'

'Agent Bennett thought you might like to come to the big meeting going on today.' Rush noted Lee's perplexity. It had also perplexed her, only temporarily. 'Director Wellington has flown in especially. He has some news for us.'

'About Zeta?'

'That I don't know. And I'd feel uncomfortable repeating any sort of conjecture I've heard. Will you come? It's at fourteen hundred, room 405, et al.' With a bob of her head, she stepped aside and was gone, even before Marcia could give an adequate answer. But of course no one said no to James Bennett.

Room 405 was the largest meeting room in the NSA's Colorado field office. It was four rooms, actually, separated by mechanised partitions that could be swept into the walls to expand the quarters into a whole. That it happened to be on the Snore Floor was no accident. Low clearance employees, all fifteen employed at the base, worked only part-time, and only in the morning. The Snore Floor was emptied by noon every weekday. But Lee found the corridors full of technical operatives, field operatives, and almost all the communications operatives. There hadn't been a single Com Op who'd never, at some point in time, tracked down some piece of Zeta somewhere, no matter how trivial, no matter if it was thrown away. Marcia found only a few field operatives, Nagel, Teague, and Jasinski, huddled in one corner. There were no available chairs, but plenty of space to move around and stand without invading anyone's personal space. And NSA agents greatly valued their personal space. Agent Teague greeted her, with a smile and a wink, customary for him, so genuinely charming that Lee had to smile back. She searched the crowds for other familiar faces. Orrin West was easy to spot, being the only one in the room with that strange auburn hair. He, too, was apart from the others, standing nearer Agent Spencer than members of the Tech Op squads. Nick, with Director Hattie and Agent Culley, was speaking animatedly while looking casual, hands in his trouser pockets. Likely he knew what Director Wellington would have to say. Lee's attention was caught at the south doorway, Agent Bennett parading in. He met her look and nodded, she saluted him in the same way, mainly to acknowledge that she'd accepted his invitation. But, by the looks of things, she would've been invited anyhow, with all the agents in attendance. Yet—maybe not. Suppose Director Wellington meant to exclude her, for some inane reasoning of his own?

He came in then, with an entourage of military personnel at his flanks. A podium had been roped off with tall stanchions, leaving a half-circle wide enough for Wellington to stand comfortably, his backdrop the dress uniforms of Army representatives. The dim chattering died, all in the room awaiting his words. He was a formidable speaker, Marcia knew that by reputation, but this would mark the first time she'd hear his formal presentation. If Wellington was dismayed by her presence, it never showed, as he careened his emotionless stare across her, briefly, but lengthy enough to recognise her. Austerity was reserved solely for his speech.

'Good afternoon.'

Some agents returned the greeting. Marcia crossed her arms and shifted her feet. Bennett remained next to her, closer to her than Teague. He stood at ease and never let his eyes leave Wellington. Marcia's mind wandered, already envious of Bennett's focus.

'I've brought all of my agents together today so we may discuss some very unusual occurrence that have taken place in the last two months. I'm sure that you've noticed one common thing among each and every agent in this room.' He paused and glanced around them, and everyone else looked at each other, too, till he spoke again. 'We have, at some time or another, been asked to locate the missing and renegade Infiltration Unit Zeta.'

The room erupted in murmurs. Marcia couldn't tell if they were of dumb surprise or congenial interjections. The quiet came rapidly again.

'I did not travel two thousand miles this morning to discuss Zeta with you. Yet, I must inform you, strongly if I may, that Zeta may be an interlocking key in all of this. Please bear that in mind today, and henceforth as you do your duty to your country. . . . For some time we have suspected that Zeta is involved in the international and domestic terrorist organisation calling itself Brother's Day.' His knobbly-knuckled finger slid in a solid line, right to left, indicating the mass. 'Each and every one of you has also brought in profound information on Brother's Day. But now it's my turn to bring you information on Brother's Day. I have been able to locate, through my own efforts and devices, the identification of the anonymous donor Infiltration Unit Zeta had been investigating at the time it turned traitor.'

Marcia threw a worried glance at James. He chewed the inside of his lips and also seemed worried—or relieved. Murmuring of other agents diminished.

'This anonymous donor had been using Titus Sweete as a launderer. Sweete, an inside man at Brother's Day, would make the donations himself via his anonymous friend. Now Infiltration Unit Zeta was able to recover as much information as that before it chose to forego all sense of Duty and Country—'

West privately smirked at the director's phrase.

'But it was never able to recover more. And I stand before you today to reveal my efforts. I have dug deeply into fiscal accounts of several North American companies rich enough and powerful enough to extend helpful cash funds to Brother's Day. I have come up with one answer to the rippling question: Who is helping Brother's Day survive?

'My fellow agents, our enemy now has a name, and its name is MARtech. . . .'

Marcia leaned into the booth seat at Club Pierre, continuously pondering the most vivid images of the mass meeting that afternoon. Director Wellington, his thin-rimmed glasses catching the fluorescent lights, his black hair distinguished by thick white streaks at his temples, his towering, commanding presence, his practised scowl as he said the name Infiltration Unit Zeta . . . The gleam in his eyes as he denounced MARtech, simple little MARtech, as another business behind the economic balance of Brother's Day.

She sipped her drink then slid the tumbler across the slick table. Dejected by her professional world, and sombre almost to the point of tears, she'd come to the club alone forty minutes ago. She wanted to think. And think she did. About everything. Conclusion? It really hurt to think about everything.

Her forehead thudded against the end of the table. She felt like the walking dead.

'You shouldn't be using the green flame,' said a voice from above. 'You should use red. I always thought you looked best in red.'

Marcia craned her neck only to see James sitting across from her. 'I didn't invite you to sit down.' She let her head fall back to the table. 'Go away, Jim.'

He busied himself changing the colour of the holographic candle flame. Never had he cared much for green. It reminded him of Jo's insidious eyes. 'Nick told me I could find you here. He's worried about you.'

She snorted, an act to keep the tears away.

'Hell, Marcia, I'm worried about you. What's going on?' He grabbed her drink and sniffed it, the scent repugnant. 'And what are you drinking?'

'Stolichnaya. Raspberry.'

Jim evoked God and All with Marcia's declaration. 'Straight Stoli. You're kidding me.' He pushed the button for the server, answered in flash. Jim set the remaining vodka, in its thick tumbler, on the server's tray. 'Bring us an Arvonia red, thirty-two if you have it but any year will be good. Thanks.' The server flew away to complete the request. James dashed his fingertips against the table, watching Marcia's black hair flicker in the red candlelight. 'If we're going to break the rules, we may as well break them with an Arvonia red.'

'Thank you,' she sniffled. 'But you don't have to. It's expensive.'

'I can afford it. I can afford to pay the fine, too, if we're caught drinking alcohol without permission first.' He huffed petulantly. 'Marcia, would you look at me when I'm talking to you? I'm sick of having a conversation with your scalp.'

She rubbed her nose and whipped her head up. Her eyes were pink and watery.

'You think I've never seen you cry before?'

'No,' she whispered. He'd probably seen her cry more often than her own father.

'Are you going to tell me what's going on?'

She fidgeted, her pale hands on the tabletop, and waited out the question.

'Well,' he played with the salt shaker, 'I have my own suspicions. Want me to share?'

'If you want.'

The salt shaker dropped with a slight snap, and he pushed it away. Enough with the nonsensical anxiety. 'You tore out of the meeting so fast I barely saw you leave. And I think you must've gone to your office to look into MARtech yourself. When you did, you saw that it's just a little company without much bravado, just a little ways north and a little ways east of Gotham City, all very insipid—that's me being sarcastic, by the way. They have sound fiscal reports up until this year, when robotic microchip sales were at an all-time low. And you wondered how this quiet, unassuming company could ever afford to pay any terrorist organisation any money at all. Then you started to wonder: Is Wellington making all of this up? Is he just saying this so we won't look into it anymore? What's his agenda? Everyone in Washington has an agenda, and certainly he has.' He broke for dramatic emphasis. 'How am I doing so far?'

'Right on target,' she said. He handed her a napkin when the bottle of wine came. She dried her nose while he prepared her glass, pouring it and aerating it. 'How'd you figure me out?'

'You know, Marcia, appalling as it may be to some, we do think alike occasionally, aside from having the same good taste in wine.'

'You mean, you did the same thing? After the meeting, you went to your office and—you looked up MARtech—and you thought—'

'I thought he must be making it up. He is trying to get me, and you, and everyone else, to look the other way.'

'Why?'

'I don't know. I wish I did. It's part of his agenda, and I don't know what that agenda is.' He saw what she was doing. 'Stop thinking about it. You can't think anything else tonight, all right? If you do, you'll—shrivel. I've seen it happen.'

For once, he made her laugh. With a small sense of humour, practically to the nonexistent vertex, Jim rarely made anyone laugh.

'You don't want to be a raisin, do you?'

'No,' she shook her head, 'I don't want to be a raisin. Just me. Marcia Lee.'

'That's what you're best at.' He set the glass down and bravely brought up another topic. 'Nick said you're leaving.'

'Nick should really learn to be more discreet.'

'He's been discreet enough. He only told me because I asked—he confirmed.'

'How'd you find out?'

'I've been watching you. You're unhappy.' He pushed the glass around by the stem, anything to keep from looking at her. 'That means it's time for you to go.'

He was right, the time really had come. She'd only supposed it would last longer, the honeymoon of being an NSA agent. After doing all she could to prove Zeta's innocence, she'd met blockade after blockade. The directors weren't interested in her pleas for a different perspective on Zeta, and even Nick's petitioning fell upon deaf ears in Washington. The NSA had one view, and one view only, of their lost Infiltration Unit. The game, and her part in it, was over. The dream was gone.

'I wish I could do what you do,' James suddenly said. 'It takes a lot of blind courage to turn your back against the NSA and walk away.'

'They'll never let me go completely. They'll keep an eye on me. But that's okay. I won't be doing anything they'd disapprove of, I should think. If you're unhappy, James,' she halted, and the phrase seemed to break apart. She liked the look of him best when she could peer into the internal heartache of him—knowing someday it might come to an end. She believed in God, faith, and marriage—but she could not imagine the horror of being married to someone who didn't love her, when all faith in that love had faded. He, as everyone else, deserved to be loved. 'You could leave with me.'

A lopsided grin of remorse rose and fell. They watched each other for a moment, the understanding experienced more intimate than anything they'd known before.

'Maybe,' he said, 'maybe someday.'

Marcia had no need to ask why the delay. She knew why. 'James—'

'The pity of it is, Marcia, is that someday I really hope you'll be happy. Because, when you are, I'm going to find you. And when I do find you, you're going to teach me what it's like to be happy, really happy, and how to hold on to that happiness. Until then, I'll be a miserable old man whose only means of happiness are his son, his work, and his memory of you. Would you like to dance?'

She smiled as he tied the sentences together, in a fit of discordance only he could commit. Taking his hand, she lifted from the booth with him. 'Has anyone ever told you that you're quite a fine dancer?'

'Only Miss Rowen,' he joked. They swirled among the other couples, to a slow love song crooned by Harry and her hip-to Bumbling Bees.

At the wide, arched entranceway between the dinning hall and the side lounge, Ro Rowen halted. Zee came up beside her and made motions of passing. She involuntarily grabbed his hand. He stopped.

'Zee, look. He _is_ here.'

Zee had to follow the line of her eyes, then successfully spotted the same image. With a slight adjustment of brightness and contrast, the dancing floor quite dim, he was able to see physical features better.

'It's Bennett, but he's with Agent Lee,' Ro said for herself, in case Zee was a little slow on the uptake. 'I guess that cancels our dinner.'

'Ro, allow me a moment to—'

'Do what you gotta do, Zee. I'll wait here.' She sat at the bar and flipped through an ancient copy of _Look_ magazine. Zee returned before she was more than a dozen pages in. 'Ready?'

'We can find somewhere else to eat. Though, inside, I saw no other agents.'

'I don't care. Bennett's enough for me. There's no way I'm dancing with him again.'

'He looked well occupied.'

Ro's glassy laugh filled the lounge. 'That's fine for him, but we're still leaving. Let's go.'

Zee escorted her off the stool. Before departing, he looked into the dinning room again. They were still dancing. But he liked the image, pleased by it, and smiled as he darted out the door. He didn't let the smile go until Ro's admonishing 'Hurry up, Zee!' as he dawdled across the lot to the kerb. In the car, at the driver's seat, he saw her sudden declaratory sadness.

'Something wrong?'

'Just—' she held her hands at her sternum, staring into the darkened bit of space by her feet, 'an odd feeling . . . like we won't ever be here again.'

'In Colorado or at Club Pierre?'

'I'm not sure . . . It's just a feeling. Let's go, okay?' She watched the skyline disappear in the side mirror. Still came the quivering in her insides, an indication of nerves or relief. It stayed and loitered even in her fitful dozes, well beyond the borders of Colorado. When she awoke, she was glad for Zee's presence, a sturdy being at the wheel. She reached for his arm and squeezed. And, without saying a word, declared a trust and companionship between them.

Bennett returned to the table. He picked up a wrapped, rectangular package about the size of both his hands. 'What's this?'

Lee shrugged. 'I don't know. Is it for you?'

In the faint light, he could see his name printed on the patterned paper. 'Guess it is.'

'Open it,' she smiled. 'Maybe you have a secret admirer.'

'Some secret.'

'It's probably Marceau.'

Bennett chuckled as he jostled the tape and paper from the object. He turned it over in his hands, back to front, and scanned the cover. 'It's a book.'

'Hm,' she had a sip of wine, 'must've been given to you by someone who doesn't know you very well. You never read anything that isn't a weapons manual.'

She received no response. He was reading something on the inside cover, out of her eyesight.

_Agent Bennett,_

_You should read this. You'll understand why when you do. Happy birthday._

It was signed with a scribbled, lower-case Greek letter, Zeta.

Bennett threw back his head and howled a long series of joyful guffaws. Marcia had no idea why until he plopped the book in front of her. She read the cover. Victor Hugo's _Les Miserables_. And she laughed, too.

'Maybe he knows you better than I thought.'

'Yeah,' said Bennett through the remains of a grin, 'yeah, maybe he does.'


	22. Winter 2

22) Winter

January 2043

In a cold, pale mixture of slush and snow and river water, Batman drudged his way from the bank to the shore of the Gotham River. Having flown just overhead, he caught a strange anomaly visually, and decided to inspect. Within five feet of the object, his suspicion altered to fact.

'It's definitely a body,' he said through the line. 'A very dead one.'

'I'm running it through the database now,' Wayne replied, doing his own detective work in the Cave. 'We should have a match in a few seconds.'

'No need.' Carefully, he turned the corpse at the shoulder, just enough for the pocket on the chest to show. He brought out a matchstick torch from his utility belt and shined it on the dampened spot. Some of the embroidery was covered in muck, but was otherwise legible. 'This guy's military. Last name Valos. Looks like an army major.'

Wayne typed this into the computer. A search result popped up. 'Major Eric Valos, stationed in Washington. Multiple liaison.'

'What's that mean?'

'It means he talks to everyone. CIA. EU. MI6. NSA.'

'Splendid. I don't really like anyone involved in things only spoken of in initials. Why's he dead in my river?'

When Wayne didn't respond right away, Terry tapped the com-link to see if it was functioning. All he heard was faint digital static. Now what was going on? Interference? From what?

He fell back as the shine of a silver blade came from nowhere and cuddled against his neck. With his hands raised, he scanned the image on his left. A tall and rather lovely woman, with high cheekbones and cascades of heavy brown hair, stood in the snow beside him, a scimitar held in both hands. Her ruby lips curled upwards in greeting.

'Cur—Curare?' It didn't look a thing like her, not that freakish blue metahuman he'd met two times too many. While he might've been mistaken by her looks, he'd never forgotten her sword. 'It is you, isn't it?'

Curare nodded. She held the sword in place but glanced at Valos.

'You killed him,' surmised Batman. 'Why?' He twitched when she rearranged her stature. The sword dropped but he knew better than to attack. That sword was still quicker than he was. She was one of the worst enemies he'd ever battled, and he was anything but eager to face off against her so soon. It seemed as if they'd just met.

'There is something going on,' called a voice.

Batman flipped around to catch sight of a disguised figure at the top of the river embankment. He didn't bother to ask who it was. The only divisible characteristic was an accent, English maybe, but with a hint of something else.

'We thought you ought to know. Valos is dead, but it won't stop with him. It'll never really end, Batman. And if it does, and maybe it will, you'll know.'

At the pause, Batman angled to Curare, but she'd already disappeared. He faced the male figurine again. 'What? What is happening?'

'If Zeta comes to you—'

'Hold it. Zeta?'

'If he comes to you, you'll help him, won't you?'

'That is up to Zeta.'

'And the girl—'

'Ro?'

'Watch the girl. It started with and will probably end with her.' The figure faded beyond the incline in an instant, even before Batman called out to him.

Annoyed, he rocketed out of the frozen riverside and up to the warehouse parking lot. But all was quiet. Nothing stirred. Faraway Gotham din could be heard, yet he saw nothing, heard nothing, out of the ordinary. He glanced down the hill to the body of Eric Valos. Even the words spoken to him by the mysterious man seemed to be fading.

The com-link returned.

'Terry, are you all right?'

He took a second before answering. 'I think I'm going crazy.' He loved the old man for the appropriate cranky response.

'About time.'


	23. Heaven

23) Heaven

May 2043

Bucky looked at the scrap sheet of paper in his fingers again. Its rough edge was peeled away in a hot western wind. But he saw the digits clearly enough, and the caveman quality map an ancient someone in town had scribbled out for him. He tucked it away in the back pocket of his jeans and continued to focus on his footing. Only a few more feet ahead, he made it to the hill's apex and paused to catch his breath. He scanned behind him, the marks he'd made in the pale, dusty dirt. And below, nestled in a valley, the small town of Mineral de Monte. To the southeast, on its own mountainous standing, rose the filmy image of Mexico City. Bucky crossed the apex and wound through a thicket. When it cleared away, he caught his breath at the beautiful, religious view in front of him. He'd found the hidden abbey.

Wasting no time, he traipsed the footpaths, lined with geraniums and other well-tended, blooming fauna, and stopped at the tall wooden doors. One had a primitive sign with the abbey's name burned into a golden pine board, while the other had a bronze crucifix. The contrite face of Jesus seemed to wink at him as a beam of sunlight caught it, the door being pulled inward. Bucky hinged, from Jesus to the nun in front of him.

'May I help you, child?'

He resented the title of child, but supposed it to be an honorary, rather innate thing among those of The Cloth. He returned with a cordial, respective Spanish greeting. 'I'm looking for Esperanza Ortenegerra. She is here, isn't she?'

'Is she expecting you?' The nun was charmed by his boyish half-smile.

'That's definitely possible.'

'Well, come with me.'

He stepped inside the abbey, following the nun. Immediately, he was glad he'd come, if not for finding out how Esperanza was, but for the solemnity of the ancient abbey. Inside it was all done in the same golden knotty pine, taken from the nearby and surrounding forests, and every wall cast an almost holy golden aureate upon all. They passed the open doors of the cathedral, some pews housing commoners seeking comfort from inner pain. Bucky touched his fingers to the holy water in the basin and quickly crossed himself. He hadn't spoken to God in ages, but still supposed that, somehow, through His own Mighty Mysticism, God spoke to him. Margie would find the thought amusing, especially considering the latest turmoil her grandson had encountered. He quickly caught up to the leading nun. They passed some nuns careening through wide hallways, ever deeper into the cavernous back end of the abbey. Bucky eyed one peculiar sight, a monk, in monk's attire, coming the opposite way. He glanced over his shoulder to see the monk enter the cathedral. Bucky was forced to look away at the cajoling of the nun.

Finally, they made it to the rear gardens, a fantastic place exhibiting all God's green and flowering creations. There were nine nuns weeding and trimming the garden, with several more at certain points, reading, scribbling in diaries, or just thinking lovely holy thoughts. The nun walked up to another in a different garment, the less formidable attire of a novitiate.

'Esperanza,' the nun called gently, and Esperanza turned, 'a young man has come to see you.' The nun bowed to Esperanza, then to Bucky, and vanished among the scenery.

'_Hola, señorita,_' Bucky started, tone flat. 'I wasn't sure the nun could find you. You guys all start to look alike after a while.'

She set the pruning shears down on an obliging boulder and removed gardening gloves finger by finger. 'Señor Buenaventura, it's lovely to see you. You look a little more grown up, I say. Shall we walk a little?'

He shrugged, as if to ask 'Why not?' and stepped by her side. 'I only came to ask you a question.'

'I think I know what it is you want to ask. You want to know why I've come to the abbey.'

'More or less.'

'I came because it was my duty.'

'Duty to whom? Yourself, or God?'

'Some might argue that those two separates are truly the same.'

'Please, just tell me—did you kill him? And that's why you're here, to stay hidden in an abbey for the rest of your life, atoning for what you've done?'

Esperanza's jaw slacked, her thick lips parting in shock. But she shook it off. 'Señor, I don't know what you're talking about.'

'I'll refresh your memory. Eric Valos is dead. He was killed almost five months ago. Isn't that about the time you came to this place? A little convenient, isn't it?'

The novitiate remained unfazed through Bucky's exhilaration. 'I've killed no one, señor.' But it was evident he did not believe her. 'Sit down for a moment with me, Bucky, and let me explain.'

They took a bench hewn from thick beams of oak and pine, beneath the trellis upon which pink honeysuckle bloomed, its fragrance overtaking the air. He remembered the day he first spoke to Esperanza, what felt like centuries ago but which was, in sore fact, not even a year ago. So much had happened! His senses whirled, with the scent of the blossoms and the fresh mountain air, and he felt the same emphatic sensations toward Esperanza now as he had then. What did happen? How had she come to live in this abbey, to give her beauty and life up to El Señor, forever?

'I meant to take my revenge against Eric Valos,' Esperanza began sedately. The faraway look of pain in her eyes resurfaced. 'I wanted him to suffer as I had suffered. He stole my father, and he was getting away with murder. I started to hunt him down. I came close. I knew he'd gone to Gotham. I went to Mexico City to remove money from one of my accounts, to pay for the trip to Gotham—and I had very little intention of returning here, to Mexico. But while I was in Mexico City, I met a strange man. A man without a name, but a man of God. I don't know how it happened, yet I found myself explaining my plan of revenge to him. And he listened, angelic, demure, kind. He begged me to reconsider, and told me he knew a place of quiet and peace, where I might find what I was looking for. That is how I came to this abbey. He brought me here, in his own way, under his docile wing. I have given up all thoughts of revenge. I did not kill Eric Valos. I was in this abbey when he died. Do you understand now, Bucky? Does my decision—it makes sense to you?'

He had nothing to say. What could be said to this? Instead of revenge, she had found something else. What had she found that she hadn't known before? She'd always known God. She'd always known compassion. What had made itself known to her so suddenly, so acutely, that she stayed in this abbey? There existed something _more_, a thing so commonplace yet so imprecise and unknown that he was sure he'd never feel its power. But he was comforted by its presence.

With a kiss to her cheek, and a phrase of praise to her commitment, Bucky left Esperanza in her heavenly bower.


	24. Hands 2

24) Hands

July 2043

The lights came on in the condo living room just as she opened the door and walked in. How had anyone in advanced civilization lived without motion-sensor lights? Timers, she supposed, and handheld torches. What quaint novelties!

She plunked her handbag and briefcase on the end of the couch, as she always did whenever home for a few minutes, and headed for the bedroom. The light did not come on when she entered. The darkness held her captive under the lintel.

'Someone in here?' she spoke into the thick black. She fumbled for the light switch on the wall, but nothing happened. No light came. She was not afraid but curious, sure that the yawning black before her held another presence. Before she could switch her sight—

'I guess there's no point in hiding it any longer,' came from a chair in the corner next to the bureau. Then a lamp ignited, done manually by this stranger. He allowed her to observe him, calculating him, the way anyone of her kind and position would. 'Good evening and welcome back to South Carolina, Miss Donoso. Beaufort has missed you.'

'Who the hell are you, the South Carolina Welcoming Committee?' Andrea Donoso quickly spied the cordite in his hands. Old. Probably from one of the last wars. With a vaguely British design about it. Whatever kind it was, she was sure it was loaded. But what a fool he was to think it'd work against her! 'Your weapon is useless.'

'Oh,' he pocketed it sluggishly, 'I know that, don't worry. I only had it out on the off chance you were someone a little less—congenial. My name is Sullivan French. I don't suppose you've heard of me.'

'Can't say I've had the pleasure, Mr French.'

'No, you wouldn't've, a squeaky clean girl like you. You're the type that chooses her associates carefully, pensively, with a good deal of conscience. As much as, that is to say, you get to choose anything you do. I certainly wouldn't be spoken of in any of your glamorous scientific circles.'

'Do you mind if we continue this surmise of character while I pack a few things for Dr Selig? We're leaving again soon.'

'Ah, no, I understand the time constraints. Feel free to pack up the old man's underwear and socks till your little metal heart is content, Miss Donoso.'

She dragged a suitcase from the closet and dutifully began to fill it. Her steps between the closet and bureau light and unaffected by French's presence.

'How is the old man these days?'

'Fine.' She folded up one of his favourite sweaters and tucked it in the suitcase.

'He enjoying furlough this month?'

'As much as he ever enjoys being drawn away from his work, yes.'

'And, uh, how are you? Over-worked and under-paid?'

'Under-worked and over-paid, if you ask me. I hope you'll be reaching your point very quickly, Mr French.'

A beat of thirty seconds. French heard hangers in the closet bumping against one another in the flurry of Andrea's movement.

'I want you to pass along a message to Dr Selig. A few messages. Three. Since you're so hung up on the concept of precision.'

She never stopped the movement to look at him, but this was a slight surprise. Imagine the gall of someone sneaking into the doctor's condo just to pass along a message! And how did he know this was where the doctor lived, anyway, when and if dear Selig ever actually _lived_ anywhere? The more the minutes unravelled, the more she was acutely perplexed by Mr French, his coolness, his odd accent.

'Andrea, I know you love him very much, and I know you want to protect him. But there are some things in this world that even you cannot stop, a force as powerful as you is weak, helpless, against it. You and your doctor are always receiving threats. Your top-secret doctor is becoming less and less top-secret. They will find him. And God help you both when they do.'

She gave him a bemused expression. 'You want me to repeat all of _that_ to Dr Selig?'

'I think you can handle it. There's more.'

She huffed and threw in a stack of wool trousers. 'You may as well go on.'

'Brother's Day is mounting an army.'

Finally, she was forced to look at him. A keen-eyed man with a handsome face, long chin, and strangely soft hands. 'What?'

'They're mobilising along the east coast of the United States. From here to Boston to the Keys. If Selig is wise, he'll demand that Knossos be transferred into Pacific waters.'

'I beg your pardon!'

He ignored the polite outburst, despite the fact it almost made him laugh. 'They have enough thermo devices and soldiers to handle blowing up the fortress. Don't give me that look, Miss Donoso, you know they're capable of it.'

'But even if they are,' she went back to the packing, 'they couldn't possibly plan something like that. It moves—all the time! It's never in one place—'

'They'll find a way. You must warn Selig and the others.'

'I'll—I'll tell him. I'll do what I can! But it doesn't mean he'll listen—or that administration will listen to _him_! Why are you telling me this?'

'Because Selig is very important to a dear friend of mine. I don't want to see her hurt if Selig is suddenly unable to—help.'

Andrea zipped up the suitcase and lobbed it off the bed. Though it must've weighed a good forty pounds, to her it weighed next to nothing. Her ambitious mind flittered back and forth among his declarations. 'Well, I'm sure your friend has nothing to worry about.'

'You are immortal, Andrea—Selig is not. Remember that.'

She held her chin high, dignity roused. 'Of course I'll remember. I'm not a heathen.'

Now he did snicker. 'I like you, Miss Donoso, I always have.' He glared at her so that she looked away, indicating a past to her, more than this tie to Selig. 'You're a good, loyal sort of creature. A bit wild and strange and full of braggadocio, but I suppose that's a necessary evil in your line of work. Got to keep the old duck afloat, haven't you? Mind what I've said. It'll help you in the end.'

'I'll mind it, Mr French. Anything else?'

He blinked and watched her, the stillness of her frame, the human shape of her too properly proportioned to be real. What else could he say to make her understand the urgency? He brushed past her frozen frame, then loitered just on the other side of the doorway. Andrea did not twist his way as he spoke for a final time.

'Our only hope lies with you, Miss Donoso. If you fail, there will be no one else, and all that we've done, all that you've done, all that the doctor has done, will be irrevocably lost. The fate of hundreds, the fate of her that I love more than anything in this world, is left in the palms of your hands.'

o—o

Notes

**Chapter 3, 'Breakfast'**  
Most of the stuff I write about Colorado is real. There really is an historic downtown Littleton, for example. And there are a couple of marina places on some of the reservoirs. The Bennetts, however, live in a fabled town called Cherry Creek. It's actually a slightly real location, but it's only an _area_ near Englewood, not an actual city. (Mostly it's just upscale shops and things.) I love the fact that Bennett is from Lakewood, which is my favourite Denver suburb. It's older and way more laid back than any other south-western area. — The marina that Littles owns is probably at Chatfield Reservoir, which might've grown in size by the time 2042 rolls around.

**Chapter 12, 'Kismet'**  
What (or who) is Zee referring to at the end of this chapter? You'd have to read _Erasure Attempt_ and _Pulse of the Machine_ to answer the riddle. Zee is surprisingly good at keeping secrets.

**Chapter 15, 'Moo'**  
Polly Jean's Ice Cream Parlour is based almost entirely on Young's Jersey Dairy in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Except Young's doesn't have any other kind of ice cream except what's made from cow milk. — Please note the return (but not end!) of my on-running Ohio joke!

**Chapter 15 – 16**  
There was some speculation as to why I wrote about the Irish coming after Ro (chapter 15) and Ro's Irish family (chapter 16). Well, let me see if I can explain. Basically, it's because this is a prequel to _Predestination_ (et al), and takes place a year before _Pred_ begins. For a full explanation, I recommend reading these chapters:

Journeys chapter 16, 'Origins'  
Another Someday, FFN chapter 16 & 17  
There's a good flashback chapter that shows Ro's heroic father: Near As Now, FFN chapter 11

**Chapter 19**  
Some weird coincidences, or, as V would say, the illusion of coincidence. 19 August is the day this chapter takes place. It is also the day I started writing Predestination. It is also the chapter number.

**Continuity**  
Unless you read _Whole Day Off_ and _August_ consecutively, you probably won't notice the continuity issues. This pertains predominately to Irving Houston's family. In _August_, compared to _WDO_, Irving Houston was a committed bachelor. In _WDO_, it seemed that he had once been married and had children. I prefer the _August_ version.

There are also slight continuity issues with Jimmy Bennett. I hadn't come up with the rest of the Bennetts then, and I didn't know about their obsession with nicknames until _August_, so this is the first appearance of nicknames for the little James.

**Carnoids**  
Not canon (but, ahem, should've been). Just invented for this story. I wish I'd had this information around when I was writing Near As Now. Until just now, I couldn't remember where Gaut-chya made her first appearance. It's _Another Someday_, right at the tail end of FFN chapter 7. _The robot moved with a gust of wind, a mad fury found in typhoon gales, and there was no use fleeing. Even the name "Gäut-chya" was a play on the pronunciation of "Gotcha." Gäut-chya could ensnare anything._ The two dots above the 'a' don't particularly mean anything. In fact, I think it's some sort of interference of Scandinavian language that became "The Legend of Gaut-chya", because Eastern Europe, where Gaut-chya was created, doesn't use the two-dot accent. (Sorry, I forget its proper name.)

Because I'm often asked, I'll go ahead and divulge my favourite chapter. That'd be number 17, 'Weight'. Strangely enough neither an agents nor a Zee chapter.

I hope I answered everyone's concerns/questions! If not, you can always e-mail me.

Thank you so much for all the reviews! I've never had so many reviews for a story before! Don't worry, I won't let it spoil me! ;)


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